When the remains of two undocumented migrants were found in the southwestern Arizona desert last July, a body was lying next to an arrow drawn in the sand, pointing north, with the word “HELP” written below.
The men died while trying to cross Mexico to the United States, according to the border patrol. Of a group of three, one survived and told federal agents that his human smuggler had left the other two behind in the remote area.
“These people are not just numbers,” said Tony Banegas, executive director of the Colibri Center for Human Rights, an organization in Tucson that works to identify the remains of migrants and help families find loved ones.
“They are human beings with families and aspirations. They made a great effort to make the trip, [only] to become just a tomb in the desert. “
Last year was the deadliest on record for migrants who illegally crossed into the United States via Arizona, with the remains of 227 migrants found on the border, according to Humane Borders.
“This was the hottest summer ever and we saw the highest number of deaths recorded. It is a reminder of how dangerous the border can be, ”said Douglas Ruopp, president of the non-profit organization, which maps the deaths of migrants and stores emergency water supplies in the desert.
Since 1998, at least 7,000 migrants are believed to have died along the US-Mexico border, perhaps many more, as records are irregular.
As the U.S. surrounded the border, a political priority for Donald Trump, the risks for those who were still determined to make the trip only increased.
“This is a longstanding tradition, these barriers and walls pushed people into more remote and treacherous terrain,” said Jeremy Slack, assistant professor of geography at the University of Texas-El Paso and author of Deported to Death: How Drug Violence Is Changing migration on the US-Mexico border.
Crossing to any of the four American states of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California along the 2,954-kilometer US-Mexico border can be dangerous – high barriers, isolated wilderness areas with extreme temperatures, rough waters of the Rio Grande.
Norma Herrera is the community organizer in the advocacy group for the Rio Grande Valley Equal Voice Network in Texas, another corridor of deadly migrants where at least about 3,000 people have lost their lives since 1998.
“We need to be especially aware of how the various policies have the same purpose … to stop migration, making it more deadly,” she said.
Further west, the Arizona desert can be especially deadly.
Trump’s aspiration to build a wall from coast to coast at the expense of Mexico, in fact, resulted in just 225 miles of new barrier, overwhelmingly at the expense of U.S. taxpayers and mostly replacing dilapidated or minimal fences.
But the increase in deaths on the Arizona border last year – from 144 in 2019 and 128 in 2018 – coincided with a flood of construction there.
And the impact of the border wall on migrant deaths has been exacerbated by Trump’s almost complete blockade, only reinforced in the pandemic, on those who enter the United States to seek asylum.
“In almost every way, the Trump administration fundamentally ended access to asylum at the border,” said ACLU lawyer Shaw Drake, thus exposing those who tried to cross anyway “to a litany of additional dangers”.
Benegas described visits to Mexico, where asylum seekers fell ill in dangerous cities awaiting the endless asylum process, under Trump’s policy in Mexico, denying “a universal right”.
“People are living under bridges, waiting for months. Some decide to take a risk and cross the desert, ”he said.
In March 2020, Trump signed an emergency order last March allowing summary expulsion of migrants to the border based on Covid-19 concerns, removing more than 380,000 people in that way so far, according to federal data.
“They co-opted the pandemic to achieve their long-standing goal of ending asylum on the border,” said Drake.
The Arizona border region has pointed cacti, thorny shrubs and adherent grasses, often containing torn fragments of migrants’ clothing.
“The flora along the border is known as thorny scrub, and for good reason,” said Emily Burns, program director for the Arizona Island-based conservation group Sky Island Alliance. “We cannot wear soft clothes in the field, they would fray,” she said.
Many migrants are not prepared for the strange landscape and are on a blazing journey.
“Often, people don’t really have shoes. Some wear sandals, they say it will be a short trip. Most people I meet in the desert have these terrible blisters on their feet. I don’t know how they are doing, ‘said Ruopp.
Many do not carry or cannot carry enough water for a trip that can last for days.
“Most come out with two-gallon bottles tied around their necks,” said Ruopp. – That might be good for a day. We found people who were gone for five or more. “
Last year was not only the hottest on record, the summer monsoon rains did not materialize.
Ruopp found many lost and “delusional”, even “walking in circles” or, unknowingly, “heading south towards Mexico”.
Dehydration “really affects your decision making” and is a terrible way to die, he said.
Many expect things to change comprehensively with Joe Biden.
Since taking office, Biden has suspended deportations, although a judge last week lifted that moratorium. And the government officially rescinded Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, which led to families being separated and detained at the border, with further setbacks to follow.
But although the president has issued an order to halt construction work for the construction of the border wall, it is uncertain whether the barriers will be removed.
Arizona Democratic Congressman Raúl Grijalva wants the Biden-Harris government to put humanity at the center of immigration policy.
“I urge you to reverse all of Trump’s xenophobic policies that created chaos,” he told the Guardian.
Grijalva concluded: “It is no secret that the Trump administration’s draconian policies on the border created a humanitarian crisis that pushed vulnerable asylum seekers into increasingly desperate and dangerous routes in search of security … and cost countless lives.”