(Getty Images)
(CNS News) — The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) discovered the remains of at least 300 human beings, likely all migrants, along the Southwest border in fiscal year 2019, the agency reported on Oct. 30.
In addition, the Medical Examiner’s Office in Pima County, Arizona has recovered 3,081 dead bodies since 2000, “but as of Dec. 31, 2019, 1,111 decedents remain unidentified,” said the CBP.
“Every death of an undocumented person in the deserts of my county is a human rights tragedy,” said Pima County Sheriff Mark Napier. “In 2020, we are on pace to have a record number of recoveries, each one being someone’s brother, father, son, mother. My department expends significant resources doing these recoveries. Each must be treated as a crime scene in often very remote areas.”
(CBP)
The CBP reports that many of the unidentified border crossers (UBCs) are in the 50 to 89 age range, and they “often pass away as the result of dehydration from the sun or starvation after their smugglers abandon them.” Others die from accidents or homicide.
“Migrants must remember that if they so much as stumble and fall or need to rest because of heat exhaustion, human smugglers will leave them to die,” said CBP Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan. “The uncertainty of the voyage and the grief that follows the many preventable tragedies we see are just not worth it.”
According to data from the Pima County medical examiner’s officer for 2019, some 41% of of the UBCs were of Guatemalan nationality; 37% Mexicans; 10% Salvadorans; 4% Hondurans; 4% Ecuadorians; one Indian; and one Nicaraguan.
(CBP)
“Alien smuggling networks are exploiting, abusing, and profiting off of misinformed individuals and families,” Mark Morgan said. “Human smugglers aren’t service providers. They are career criminals involved in other dangerous criminal activities.”
Pima County Sheriff Mark Napier said, “We must redouble our efforts to secure our border to dissuade people from engaging in the dangerous and too often fatal activity of coming into our country without proper documentation.”
CBP encounters with illegal border crossers totaled 458,088 in fiscal year 2020, said the agency, which was “53% lower than the encounters in FY19, which were 977,509.” The numbers were lower in 2020 largely because of COVID-19, said the CBP.
