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USA Today
4 days ago
- USA Today
At the US-Mexico border, volunteers conduct a grim search for human bones
At the US-Mexico border, volunteers conduct a grim search for human bones Remains of 176 migrants were recovered near the US-Mexico border last year, a shocking jump from 20 in 2019. With crossings down, volunteer searchers hope for fewer this year. Show Caption Hide Caption Human remains are found by volunteers near the border wall Battalion Search and Rescue volunteers have found dozens of human remains in the desert in Santa Teresa, New Mexico in ares used by organized crime Editor's note: This story contains reporting and images that some readers may find disturbing. SANTA TERESA, N.M. – Human bones, white against the orange sand, are hard to miss and harder to forget. Once a month, retiree Abbey Carpenter leads volunteers through a field of dunes near the border, searching for the remains of migrants. She has located 27 sites in southern New Mexico in under two years, artefacts of a wave of migration that has ebbed to a trickle. But the bones – femur, rib, jaw – take her breath away each time. In them, Carpenter, who taught English as a Second Language, sees the journeys made by her former students ‒ migrants who live and work in the United States and learned English in her classroom. Men in construction. Women in service industries. When she first joined the desert searches, she said, "I just felt like I was walking in their footprints. I could see them: their backpacks, their shoes, their clothes." President Donald Trump's border crackdown has helped push illegal crossings to record lows over the past four months. With triple-digit summer temperatures looming here, there are growing hopes that the decline in migration could bring relief from the horrific death toll of the past two years in Border Patrol's El Paso Sector. Last year, border agents found the bodies of 176 migrants in the 264-mile sector stretching from West Texas across New Mexico. They discovered 149 remains the year before. The toll represented a shocking increase from the 20 deaths recorded in 2019. The sector has become a focal point. That's in part because of the rise in deaths and in part because local Border Patrol leaders shared the sector statistics during two deadly years, when the Biden administration failed to provide broader numbers – despite a congressional mandate. U.S. Customs and Border Protection didn't respond to a USA TODAY request for the missing data for fiscal years 2023 and 2024. Along the length of the U.S.-Mexico border, migrant deaths climbed five years running through fiscal 2022, the last period for which data is publicly available. Deaths rose to 895 from 281 over that time, according to CBP. The numbers include human remains found by Border Patrol and other federal, state, local and tribal agencies. The climbing death toll prompted CBP to create the "Missing Migrant Program" in 2017, under the first Trump administration. The goal was "to help rescue migrants in distress and reduce migrant deaths along the Southwest border," according to an Government Accountability Office report. The program also helped facilitate the identification and return of migrant remains to their families. Under the new Trump administration, the effort has been renamed the "Missing Alien Program." The vast majority of migrant remains in El Paso Sector have been found in a single county, New Mexico's Doña Ana, in an area painfully close to life-saving assistance: main roads, a cluster of factories, residential neighborhoods. Looking north from the border fence, the desert appears flat, the bare Franklin Mountains in the distance to the northeast. New Mexico's two-lane Highway 9 parallels the border about three miles to the north. The proximity to the urban footprint is in part what made this region such a heavily trafficked crossing point. But within minutes of hiking into the desert, creosote bushes and mesquite pull the sand into disorienting mounds that can, without warning, block the view in every direction. Should a tired migrant collapse in their scant shade, the sand can run as hot as 150 degrees in the summer. "We were wondering why these individuals, or these bodies, were found very close to the border," Border Patrol Agent Claudio Herrera, a sector spokesman, told USA TODAY. "The saddest thing," he said, is that migrants who survived told us "they'd been in a stash house for weeks … without proper food and without water. So by the time they made the illegal entry, they were already dehydrated." An 'open graveyard' New Mexico's Office of the Medical Investigator is tasked with investigating reports of unattended deaths, including those in the desert near the border. In 2023, the agency officially began tracking remains that could belong to a "probable migrant." Last year, the agency positively identified 75% of migrant remains recovered in southern New Mexico, or 112 individuals, according to data provided to USA TODAY. Carpenter and her partner, Marine veteran James Holeman, organize the desert searches through a nonprofit, Battalion Search and Rescue. On a Saturday in May, as temperatures climbed toward 90 degrees, nine volunteers met Carpenter and Holeman at a Love's truck stop. They donned fluorescent orange-and-yellow shade hats. They readied their radios and turned on a cellphone GPS-tracking app, for safety and to map the terrain they covered. "It is a straight-up open graveyard," Holeman said of the 10- by 20-mile section of border they've been covering little by little since late 2023. Mary Mackay, a local school teacher, volunteered with Carpenter for the first time that day. "Emotionally, it was more than I expected," she later told USA TODAY. "You feel like you would be prepared to see a body, but then you actually see it and you realize that's a real person with an entire back story and family and wishes and dreams. And it all just ended there alone in the desert." The Battalion's search for migrant remains in New Mexico follows the footsteps of other volunteer teams working in deadly stretches of Arizona and California. Search volunteers typically try to comb through areas Border Patrol or local law enforcement might otherwise miss. The volunteers don't touch the bones, said Carpenter, also a former college administrator. They mark the sites with brightly colored tape tied to the brush. They record the precise location and alert local law enforcement in hopes that officials will come to collect the bones that remain. Sometimes they do; too often they don't, Carpenter said. Animals or wind sometimes scatter the remains, before volunteers or officials can reach them. Still, she said, each one matters in the quest to identify a missing migrant. A chipped bone could hold a clue. "It takes some time and effort to work wider circles around the site to identify everything," Carpenter said. "But that's important. Which family member wouldn't want all of their family's remains recovered?" Lauren Villagran can be reached at lvillagran@
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Army control of U.S.-Mexico border buffer zone may funnel migrants to 62-mile stretch of tribal land in Arizona
Emma PatersonCronkite News WASHINGTON – Some Arizona border officials have welcomed President Donald Trump's order for a military takeover at the U.S-Mexico border. But migrant advocates fear that by sealing hundreds of miles of border in the Southwest, the troops will effectively funnel migrants to far more dangerous crossing points. And environmentalists warn of damage to habitats that support nearly two dozen endangered species. 'Militarizing the border has historically only ramped up deaths,' said James Holeman, founder of Battalion Search and Rescue, a group of volunteers who hike through desolate regions of Arizona and New Mexico searching for remains of migrants who couldn't survive the desert. 'You're talking about vulnerable people that are making very deadly choices,' he said. On April 11, Trump ordered the military to take control of the Roosevelt Reservation – a 60-foot wide strip of federal land along the border from the Pacific Ocean to New Mexico. Turning the border into a military base would get around the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the military from engaging directly in civilian law enforcement. Migrants would be subject to military arrest for trespassing within the federal zone. That zone and Trump's order cover Arizona's four border counties – Yuma, Pima, Santa Cruz and Cochise – except for a 62 mile stretch of Pima County controlled by the Tohono O'Odham Nation. Holeman, among others, expects that gap to become an even bigger magnet for human trafficking. The tribe's ancestral lands span the border, and roughly 2,000 of 34,000 members live on the Mexican side. Tribal leaders declined opportunities to discuss the situation. Even before the military build-up to the east and west, the reservation was a hot spot for illegal crossings. The tribe's stretch of border is relatively flat. And it's secured with vehicle barriers and large-gapped cattle fencing that don't impede people, because the tribe refused to allow wall construction during Trump's first term. The Border Patrol operates from offices just outside the reservation. Tribal police work with federal authorities when they catch migrants, Mennell said, but response times can be long. As the military seals other parts of the border, the reservation will become a more attractive option, Holeman said, and smugglers will demand higher prices. 'Cartels have really taken over human trafficking,' he said. 'Crossing here is going to be more expensive. If you have thousands and thousands of dollars, they can drive you right in.' As of April 22, there were 10,281 troops assigned to the Southwest border – up from 2,500 before Trump's order, according to U.S. Northern Command. 'I welcome it. … Anything that can reduce the impact on taxpayer dollars in this county,' said Frank Antenori, a Cochise County supervisor. 'It's about time the federal government got serious about securing the border and protecting the citizens of this county.' Cochise, in Arizona's southeast corner, has a population of about 124,000, and its law enforcement and health resources have been stretched thin by illegal immigration, Antenori said. The day he was sworn in for a second term, Trump declared a national emergency at the border and ordered more military personnel and surveillance aircraft there. He expanded the effort with the April 11 order assigning the 'military missions of repelling the invasion and sealing the United States southern border from unlawful entry to maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the United States.' Four days later, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced that his department would transfer control of 109,651 acres of federal land along the border to the Army for three years. 'The American people gave President Trump a mandate to make America safe and strong again,' he said in his announcement. Having more troops at the border will allow faster expansion of the border wall, along with more roads, lights and surveillance systems, according to John Mennell, acting branch chief for the Tucson sector of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. 'Whatever hasn't been done in the first term is getting done now,' he said in a phone interview. But there are critics in southern Arizona. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos, whose department patrols Tucson and a vast stretch of borderland, said he's concerned that the expanded troop presence – along with Trump's immigration crackdown – will deter migrants from asking for help. 'There's fear out there that 'if I call 911, my family member or someone is going to be deported,'' he said. Nanos would prefer reform of immigration policies – such as providing an easier and more orderly way to become a citizen. Although officials elsewhere say undocumented migrants squeeze their budgets, Nanos said he hasn't seen that. 'Even if it did, isn't that our job?' Nanos said. 'We are here to protect people in this county. That's what we're here to do, no matter their status.' Environmentalists are concerned about the impact the extra troops and their equipment will have on Sonoran Desert ecosystems that are home to thousands of plant and animal species, of which 23 are endangered. The interior secretary said the troops' presence will actually help preserve delicate habitats and sites of archaeological importance. 'High-traffic illegal crossings can lead to soil erosion, damage to fragile desert vegetation and critical wildlife habitat, loss and damage to cultural resources, increased fire risk and pollution from trash and human waste,' Burgum said when he announced the land transfer to Army control. During Trump's first term, the federal government installed tall fencing along roughly a third of the U.S.-Mexico border. Before that, any barriers generally allowed animals to pass freely. Jaguars, ocelots, mountain lions, bears and other species whose ranges span the border have all been impacted, said Russ McSpadden, who leads campaigns for the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection. Surveillance lights and increased vehicle patrols also disrupt species that call the region home, he said, and military vehicles will surely inflict more harm. 'The devastation was on a grand scale the first time around,' he said. 'These walls are being built in really sensitive ecosystems.' According to Defenders of Wildlife, the Sonoran pronghorn, the fastest mammal in North America, is endangered partly due to fencing. Only 160 remain in the U.S., plus 240 in Mexico. Trump's efforts to seal much of the border with troops comes despite big drops in illegal crossings. Arizona has seen a huge decrease since last fall. The drop has been especially sharp since Trump took office three months ago. At the current rate of decline, the total for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 could be down 80 percent from the previous year. Even so, Battalion Search and Rescue found nearly 20 sets of human remains last winter. Much of the group's work is along the 'poor man's route' through the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, west of the Tohono O'Odham reservation – a trek through desolate and rugged terrain that avoids populated areas but claims many lives. 'This is where people go when they have the least amount of money, the least amount of options,' Holeman said. 'There is basically no water and it has the highest rate of apprehension. It has the highest risk and the lowest price.' For more stories from Cronkite News, visit
Yahoo
16-03-2025
- Yahoo
'An open graveyard': Skeletal remains lie unrecovered in New Mexico's borderlands
SANTA TERESA — The rosary hung from a branch of mesquite, its light blue beads swaying in the breeze. The site was a few miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. It wasn't far from paved roads, a truck stop, the city of El Paso. But amid the sand and shrubs — all of them too short, too scrawny or too dense to offer any shelter — the populated world seemed to melt away. The blue rosary marked a spot in the desert where searchers found an identification card. It spelled out a woman's name in thick black letters: Ada Guadalupe López Montoya, 33, born in El Salvador. A team of volunteers from Arizona-based Battalion Search and Rescue, which combs the borderlands of Arizona and New Mexico for lost and missing migrants as well as human remains, found bones nearby. Nearly two months later, many of the bones were still there. It's a troublingly common occurrence, said James Holeman, 59, a Silver City resident and one of the leaders of Battalion Search and Rescue, which organizes monthly searches. In just over a year, the organization found more than two dozen such sites in the Southern New Mexico desert — enough to make Holeman call the area 'an open graveyard' — and reported them to the Doña Ana County Sheriff's Office. The remains, believed to be those of migrants, would be among hundreds of migrant deaths logged in the El Paso region since 2008, including more than 300 in Doña Ana County. It's an area that has seen at least a hundred migrant deaths annually in recent years, according to humanitarian aid groups and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Bryce Peterson, a volunteer with the nonprofit No More Deaths who helps gather data used to map migrant deaths in the region — a total of 599 since 2008 and 176 in fiscal year 2024 alone — calls it the deadliest stretch of the southern U.S. border. Group searches for human remains in New Mexico's borderlands His group's El Paso Sector Migrant Death Database logged more than 80 sets of skeletal remains between 2008 and 2024, including dozens in Doña Ana, Luna and Hidalgo counties. Battalion Search and Rescue doesn't directly report its findings to No More Deaths' database, Holeman said, though its reports to OMI could be included in the source data. Holeman believes 'there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds more out there yet undiscovered.' He and other searchers say the local sheriff's office and the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator haven't done enough to collect, catalog and — to the extent possible — identify the remains they have discovered so far. They are deeply troubled by what they see as inaction by authorities to properly address the scattered human remains and raise concerns about whether the lives lost — those of migrants — are considered a low priority by state and local officials. 'Is there a distinction here between these bones and … Santa Fe bones?' Holeman wondered. Chris Ramirez, an OMI spokesperson, wrote in an email that field investigators and transport teams 'do their very best' to properly collect and convey remains to Albuquerque for postmortem medical examinations. But, he noted, the rugged, remote landscape and abundant wildlife pose challenges for the agency. Meanwhile, Doña Ana County Sheriff Kim Stewart, in an email to The New Mexican, acknowledged tension between her office and Battalion searchers. She takes issue with the group's methods, saying it 'has not been cooperative or very forthcoming with information' and has contributed to the 'contamination of these sites.' 'Battalion SAR is not a highly trained, reputable group,' Stewart wrote. 031125_MS_Border Bodies Search_002.jpg Abbey Carpenter stands in the knee-high desert shrubs under the noon sun in December as she searches for human remains in an area along the Mexico border in Santa Teresa. She also accused Battalion Search and Rescue of planting human remains in the Doña Ana County desert. 'Frankly, we don't know if a bone or bones have been brought from other locations and photographed after being deposited randomly,' she wrote. A journey ends in tragedy For Holeman, López Montoya's identification card was the latest in a string of grim discoveries. But it ultimately prompted OMI to collect some of the remains at the site, which the searchers believe may have been hers. After López Montoya went missing, her loved ones reached out to Armadillos Ni Un Migrante Menos, a California-based humanitarian organization that amplifies families' searches for missing loved ones online and searches for migrants' remains. Ada on Facebook Armadillos Ni Un Migrante Menos, a California-based humanitarian organization, posted a missing person flyer on Facebook featuring Ada Guadalupe López Montoya in July 2023. Missing persons posters are a regular sight on the Armadillos' Facebook page, as are photos and videos depicting human remains. Spectators cheer on the group from the comments section and express support for families, offering written condolences and prayer emojis. Armadillos posted a missing person flyer on Facebook featuring López Montoya in July 2023. Battalion Search and Rescue — which had found the site containing her identification, a cellphone and other personal items, along with a set of human remains in August 2024 — had learned of Armadillos' effort and saw the post about the missing Salvadoran woman. 'I heard about this missing persons thing,' Holeman said. He reached out to Cesar Ortigoza, the Armadillos' leader, and provided information about the Santa Teresa discovery. 'I said, 'This is your woman,' you know. … We found this two months ago. September, October, November. They didn't pick it up. It's still out there.' Ortigoza, 51, of San Diego was determined to ensure authorities properly responded to the report of human remains that could be López Montoya's; he booked a Nov. 15 flight to El Paso. He arrived at the Southern New Mexico site outside El Paso on Nov. 16 and notified OMI again about the remains, and waited for investigators to arrive. 'We were gonna stay there until [OMI] came over and picked them up. So that's what we did,' Ortigoza said, adding they showed up a few hours later. It took most of the day, he said, for the team to recover most of the site's remains. Ortigoza livestreamed a video of the operation on the Armadillos' Facebook page, something the group commonly does. He left the blue rosary in López Montoya's memory. 031125_MS_Border Bodies Search_007.JPG Rosary beads hang in December at the spot where Ada Guadalupe López Montoya's identification card was found alongside a cellphone and remains by Battalion Search and Rescue, which made the discovery in August. Her family tuned in to the live video and reacted with disbelief at López Montoya's personal effects, such as a pair of pants draped over a mesquite shrub. 'What did you do to get those — those belongings and put them there to make a video?' they asked Ortigoza on the live video. '[They] said that we had planted this — the evidence,' he said. The New Mexican had hoped to contact López Montoya's family members, but Ortigoza said they objected to the release of their information. López Montoya initially had no intention of crossing the border through New Mexico's desert corridor, Ortigoza said. The family's Facebook post, written in Spanish, noted she had planned to cross the border at Ciudad Juárez and go to El Paso. This was at least her second attempt to enter the U.S. — though her reasons for embarking on the journeys remain unclear. Documents from the First Court of Judgment in Santa Ana, El Salvador, allege she was the victim of human trafficking in 2012, when she and a person suspected of being a 'coyote' were stopped while trying to cross into Guatemala, with a final destination of the U.S. Her family had paid the alleged coyote, or border guide, to help her make the journey. Still, he initially faced a criminal charge of trafficking. The case ultimately was dismissed due to lack of evidence; López Montoya might have refused to testify, fearing she would become the target of criminal gangs in El Salvador for identifying the man. 031125_MS_Border Bodies Search_008.jpg A teddy bear is found on the desert floor under a shrub where volunteers with Battalion Search and Rescue searched for human remains in the desert near Santa Teresa in January. Her trek from El Salvador likely wasn't an easy one. Evidence suggests she was a victim of extortion along the way: Her family received a call saying she would be killed if they didn't transfer money, Ortigoza said. Migrants — particularly women — are often targeted for extortion, sexual violence and other crimes, said Gabriela Romero, an attorney with Derechos Humanos Integrales en Acción, a Ciudad Juárez-based organization that provides migrants with free legal representation. Romero said criminal groups have found profit potential in the extortion of migrants' families — especially relatives in the U.S. — making threats of torture, sexual violence and death of their loved one. As many as 6 in 10 migrant women face extortion in Mexico, said Miriam González Sánchez, a spokesperson for El Instituto para las Mujeres en la Migración, a Mexico-based organization that advocates for migrant women. Sexual violence, too, is on the rise against migrants, Romero said. Doctors Without Borders, a nonprofit that provides international crisis medical care, documented such a rise in a February 2024 report. Its teams in the border cities of Matamoros and Reynosa found a 70% increase in sexual assault consultations in the last three months of 2023 compared to the three months prior. January 2024's caseload was higher than in any month in 2023, the report said. But so few crimes against women end in a conviction, González Sánchez said. 'If you add the layer of being a migrant, it becomes a complete lack of access to justice for migrant women' in Mexico. Slow to collect 'field of remains' Battalion Search and Rescue maintains a binder of paperwork documenting each of its finds, noting the discovery date, GPS coordinates and descriptions of the remains. Volunteers mark each of the deaths they encounter with ribbons, affixing the pink strips to nearby foliage. Most searches lead the group to the same sight: an open expanse of desert floor with what the volunteers believe are human bones and personal items strewn about by scavenging and predatory wildlife. It's not unusual to find a 'field of remains,' said Abbey Carpenter, a Battalion Search and Rescue leader and Holeman's partner. 'You don't always find the whole body. It depends on the birds, the animals, the time,' she said. One particular field of remains was discovered in late August within a network of dirt roads, about 10 minutes by car from a Santa Teresa truck stop and a few miles as the bird flies from where López Montoya's belongings were found. Here, a hip bone. There, a scapula and clavicle. A dozen feet away, shards of vertebrae. And at the center of it all, a skull, missing its front teeth. The searchers affixed pink ribbons to shrubs near many of the bones before reporting the remains — and their GPS coordinates — to the Doña Ana County Sheriff's Office. The remains were still there in February. 031125_MS_Border Bodies Search_003.JPG James Holeman, co-founder of Battalion Search and Rescue, points to a femur and tibia bone in the desert near Santa Teresa along the Mexico border in December. Searches on Sept. 21 and 22 yielded several finds: 'about 10-12 rib bones in the area, jaw bone, other assorted bone fragments' in just one of the discoveries, according to the organization's reports, as well as hygiene items, women's clothing and a pair of small Nike tennis shoes. While most members of Battalion Search and Rescue aren't trained forensic experts, the search team does have a forensic anthropologist on staff to better help identify the age and gender of a set of remains. The expert also helps determine if remains belong to a person rather than an animal — though some skulls and desiccated anatomy are unmistakably human. The group kept a list of the eight cases it reported to the sheriff's office between late August and late October, but they don't believe the agency responded to most, if not all, of them. In February, Battalion filed a complaint against the sheriff's office with the New Mexico Department of Justice, citing the agency's lack of action. 031125_MS_Border Bodies Search_031.JPG Abbey Carpenter of Battalion Search and Rescue becomes emotional in December as she revisits a location near Santa Teresa where human remains were found and reported to authorities, but had yet to be retrieved. 'By not responding to our calls for service, DASO has created a dangerous public safety situation,' the group wrote in the complaint. Lauren Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice, wrote in an email to The New Mexican the agency has been in contact with the sheriff's office about the complaint and has determined it has 'a process in place' to handle requests in a way that balances 'the integrity of potential crime scenes and the consideration of possible archaeological remains.' She added, 'We remain aware of the situation and encourage continued communication among all parties to facilitate the identification of these remains.' The searchers contend, however, the agency isn't following a state law that details processes for people — including civilians — to report human remains and outlines how investigators must respond to the reports, with speedy action required from all parties. In the case of a death with an unknown cause, the law requires 'anyone who becomes aware of the death' to report it immediately. Once notified of a death, state medical investigators are required, 'without delay,' to 'view and take legal custody of the body.' 'This is a crime scene, and this is their job — and they're trained for it,' Carpenter said. 'When we can go back and find a femur, that's not a little bone. And so, just to sort of brush it off with, 'Oh, it's just part of the desert.' That's not good enough. They're professionals. This is their job. They're trained. They're paid for this.' 031125_MS_Border Bodies Search_013.jpg Human remains in the desert near Santa Teresa in January. Battalion Search and Rescue has discovered more than 200 sites with human remains in New Mexico and Arizona in the six years members have been searching. 'Treated as potential homicides' Stewart, the Doña Ana County sheriff, initially declined a request for an interview about Battalion Search and Rescue's allegations and human bones lying in the sand within her jurisdiction. But she later defended her agency, writing in an email her deputies follow a response process for reports of remains, one that includes detectives and crime scene technicians as well as state OMI personnel. Her office receives reports of skeletal human remains from U.S. Border Patrol agents and, less frequently, civilians, she wrote. 'Many times, the remains recovered are not complete skeletons and may be only partial remains such as ribs, leg or arm bones, skull, or only fragments of such bones. Either way the process remains the same,' Stewart wrote. She added, 'All human remains are treated as potential homicides until further investigation deems them otherwise.' The New Mexican requested copies of the office's reports pertaining to skeletal human remains found outside Santa Teresa from Aug. 30 through Oct. 20, 2024. In response, the agency provided a single 'unattended death' report from Sept. 23, 2024. The report and its supplements show a deputy, a detective and crime scene technicians, as well as OMI officials, responded to the reported remains, finding at least four bones — including 'a partial pelvis and backbone' that were 'verified to be of human origin.' Stewart voiced concerns about Battalion Search and Rescue's tactics, writing, 'the circumstances of how and when they came upon them are questionable at best.' 031125_MS_Border Bodies Search_016.jpg Abbey Carpenter finds a piece of identification on the desert floor as she searches for human remains near the Mexico border in Santa Teresa in December. The group does not immediately report remains to law enforcement, she argued, instead placing 'small marking flags' — the pink ribbons — and reporting the coordinates later via email. She also wrote the searchers do not provide adequate information for initial reports or guide deputies to the sites. Carpenter pushed back against the sheriff's accusations, arguing the organization provides sufficient information — including GPS coordinates and nearby roadways — to lead deputies to sites containing remains. 'I shouldn't have to wait at the site and guide them in,' she said. 'This is their jurisdiction, not mine.' At times, Stewart added, Battalion Search and Rescue has sent photographs of 'their own feet next to the bones,' which she wrote amounts to contamination of the sites. The sheriff also expressed dissatisfaction with the reports from Battalion, writing that some 'yielded nothing more than a few bones such as a femur and ribs or fragments of a lower jawbone.' Holeman dismissed the claims. ' She's just grabbing at straws,' he said of Stewart. 'She said so many insane things, right? She said that she talked to the [Bureau of Land Management], and these sites are prehistoric — they have braces on their teeth and they have IDs and clothing.' Carpenter noted it's unlikely many of the remains she and her team have found will ever be identified — but that doesn't mean documenting their existence and reporting their remains to authorities is meaningless. 'We're going to know that this happened on U.S. soil,' she said. 'Another person died — and this person has been counted.' 031125_MS_Border Bodies Search_018.jpg Volunteers with Battalion Search and Rescue search for human remains in the desert near Santa Teresa in January. 'Out of respect for the decedent' At times, Holeman said, Battalion Search and Rescue returns to a reported site of human remains to find rubber gloves — indicating a visit from New Mexico medical investigators. The trouble is, investigators don't always pick up all the remains, he said. At the site where López Montoya's belongings were found, for instance, he said, OMI left behind both unrecovered bones and medical investigators' rubber gloves in December. The OMI's Ramirez did not respond to The New Mexican's requests for information on the agency's investigation into the remains found near López Montoya's ID card. However, unlike Stewart, Ramirez expressed an interest in working more effectively with groups like Battalion and acknowledged difficulties investigators face when responding to reports of scattered remains in remote areas, where they have seen an increasing number of deaths. The agency is working to identify technology that would allow such volunteer search organizations to report accurate data about the location of possible human remains, Ramirez wrote in an email. 'OMI works diligently to collect all known pieces of human remains, both for a complete and thorough medical examination, and out of respect for the decedent and their family,' he wrote. Rugged terrain like that of the state's border with Mexico — where Ramirez said the office has seen a 'significant increase' in deaths in the past two years — can pose unique challenges. 'The field investigator and transport team do their very best, following certain protocols that they have trained on, to ensure all parts of a decedent are properly collected,' Ramirez wrote. But, he added, 'This geography of New Mexico is extremely rugged, sandy, filled with wildlife, and is often extremely difficult to access. Additionally, some decedents are found weeks or even months after their death often causing remains to scatter across the desert due to wind, floods, and wildlife.' 031125_MS_Border Bodies Search_014.jpg James Holeman of Battalion Search and Rescue examines personal belongings in the desert of Southern New Mexico along the border with Mexico in January. Pushed toward 'hostile terrain' López Montoya's belongings, and likely her bones, were found nearly 20 miles from El Paso, where her family believes she was headed. How did she end up in the desert scrub of Southern New Mexico? Part of the answer could lie in a decades-old Border Patrol policy. Officers patrol the remote desert region, but the large majority of the agency's personnel and surveillance systems are concentrated in urban areas. This stems from a policy known as 'prevention through deterrence' in a 1994 document detailing the agency's strategy for the future. The document, approved by then-Border Patrol Commissioner Doris Meissner, states urban areas pose the greatest concerns — especially 'twin cities' like El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, which she named as the greatest risks for illegal entry. The plan emphasizes the importance of controlling urban areas, so that 'illegal traffic' is forced onto rural roads with less anonymity and less access to public transportation and nationwide travel. 'The prediction is that with traditional entry and smuggling routes disrupted, illegal traffic will be deterred, or forced over more hostile terrain, less suited for crossing and more suited for enforcement,' the plan states. These days, though, migrants have little choice in their final destination, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said. 031125_MS_Border Bodies Search_019.JPG U.S. Custom and Border Protection agents guard the border on Mount Cristo Rey along the border between Ciudad Juárez, left, and Sunland Park in February. Searchers have discovered many sites with human remains on the plateau in the background. The El Paso Sector, a 264-mile stretch of border that includes New Mexico and a handful of West Texas counties, poses 'multiple different dangers,' said Claudio Herrera Baeza, a supervisory Border Patrol agent in the sector. 'The terrain itself is very, very hard. It's unforgiving,' he said of the New Mexico desert. 'A simple twist of an ankle can mean a difficult situation, if not a possibility of dying.' 'Transnational criminal organizations' decide where and when migrants cross the border and often abandon individuals in their care without food, water or supplies, said Landon Hutchens, a spokesperson for Border Patrol's El Paso and Big Bend sectors. 'Most of the time, [migrants] don't even know where they're being smuggled through,' Herrera Baeza added. 'They don't know the terrain; they don't know the vastness of the terrain, the difficulties of the walk.' Underscoring the perils in the barren desert, a solar-powered emergency beacon looms a few miles from the truck stop near Santa Teresa. The beacon offers no emergency supplies — only a red button, a diagram of a collapsing person and a sign. It reads: 'If you need help, push red button. U.S. Border Patrol will arrive in 1 hour. Do not leave this location.' Border Patrol logged nearly 1,000 humanitarian rescues in fiscal year 2024, Hutchens said, and the agency employs a combined 150 or so paramedics and emergency medical technicians to respond to medical emergencies near the border. Upon being nursed back to health, once-injured migrants will be 'placed on removal proceedings' and sent back to their country of origin, Herrera Baeza said. The choice to push an emergency beacon's red button, then, is not an easy one to make. 'I completely understand the difficulties of wanting to have a better life, a better future for your loved ones,' Herrera Baeza said. But he issued a plea for those considering the treacherous trip through the El Paso Sector: 'Please don't cross,' he said. 'Don't come over illegally.'
Yahoo
16-03-2025
- Yahoo
Inquiry into unrecovered remains was guided by story of Salvadoran migrant
There is no right way to react to a human hip bone lying in the desert. My reaction, when I saw that flash of white in the soil a few feet from my boots, was a sharp inhale. That moment — that breath — is where 'Dead in the Desert' really began for me. It came during a visit to a remote stretch of desert near Santa Teresa in December with members of an Arizona-based organization that searches for migrant remains. James Holeman, one of the leaders of the group, had reached out to The New Mexican a few months earlier, urging us in a September email to look into a shocking problem the group had discovered: unrecovered bodies in the New Mexico borderlands and little action to address them by state and local authorities. Holeman followed up about a week later with photos from a recent search, including one showing a Salvadoran identification card for Ada Guadalupe López Montoya; the ID was discovered near human remains. Here was a face, a name, someone whose story had been documented by Holeman's Battalion Search and Rescue and in Facebook posts by another humanitarian group, Armadillos Ni Un Migrante Menos, based in California. López Montoya — and her belongings found in the desert — served as our guide in this story. Parts of her story became the story. 'It's reasserting that this was a human being with a story, with a family,' New Mexican reporter André Salkin said. 'It's not just a set of bones, and it's not just a nameless dead person in the desert with no tie to this world.' Salkin and I started piecing together 'Dead in the Desert' — conducting interviews with search and rescue volunteers and humanitarian aid workers; questioning the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator, state Department of Justice and Doña Ana County Sheriff's Office; and sifting through sheriff's office reports and other records. It was particularly difficult to get a response from Doña Ana County Sheriff Kim Stewart. Though her perspective was essential to this story — we wanted to ensure she had an opportunity to respond to Battalion Search and Rescue's accusations her agency had not properly responded to reports of human remains — the county staff declined my requests for an interview or information, stating Stewart was 'not available' or 'doesn't have any information to share at this time.' Stewart later responded promptly to questions emailed directly to her, making accusations of her own against Battalion. Members of Battalion Search and Rescue led us in December to several sites with human remains near Santa Teresa, including the location where searchers found López Montoya's ID card. Photographer Michael G. Seamans joined us on the trip, and he returned to the area a few more times in the months afterward to document the group's searches in photos and video. What we saw at these desert sites was troubling. Battalion members pointed to shards of what they believe were vertebrae, jaw bones, skulls lying in the dirt. Many of the photos that accompany this report are graphic; they show human skulls and bones. These photographs were published as documentation of the realities behind this report, not for shock value. As Seamans said, they're 'visual evidence.' 'Hard evidence of what's being found is necessary, I think, to jolt people into action. I think there's a power to a picture,' he said. This isn't a comprehensive report on issues at the border. Rather, our goal is to bring to light what Holeman calls 'an open graveyard' — where human remains, considered sacred in almost every culture worldwide, have been woefully neglected, and to provide some answers on why migrants like López Montoya choose to leave their home countries and encounter the sometimes-deadly conditions they find upon their arrival in the U.S. 'What started as, for us, reporting on … an insular story ended up becoming kind of a pathway into much larger questions around federal policy, around what women are experiencing in the process of migration,' Salkin said. None of that is to say these photographs are easy to look at, these descriptions easy to read. This project will leave a lasting imprint on us, the reporters and photographer who pieced it together. 'You expect to see the normal stuff — like a cow carcass or an animal carcass or, you know, things that belong in nature — not human remains, partially clothed,' Seamans said. He added, 'It kind of sucks the wind out of you at first because you're not expecting to see that.'
