Climate impact or policy choice? The spatiotemporality of thermoregulation and border crosser mortality in southern Arizona (original) (raw)
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The contribution of physical exertion to heat-related illness and death in the Arizona borderlands
Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology, 2023
Recent studies and reports suggest an increased mortality rate of undocumented border crossers (UBCs) in Arizona is the result of heat extremes and climatic change. Conversely, others have shown that deaths have occurred in cooler environments than in previous years. We hypothesized that human locomotion plays a greater role in heat-related mortality and that such events are not simply the result of exposure. To test our hypothesis, we used a postmortem geographic application of the human heat balance equation for 2,746 UBC deaths between 1990 and 2022 and performed regression and cluster analyses to assess the impacts of ambient temperature and exertion. Results demonstrate exertion having greater explaining power, suggesting that heat-related mortality among UBCs is not simply a function of extreme temperatures, but more so a result of the required physical exertion. Additionally, the power of these variables is not static but changes with place, time, and policy.
Journal on Migration and Human Security, 2019
This article conducts geographic information system (GIS) modeling of unauthorized migration routes in the Sonoran Desert in southern Arizona and finds an increase in the ruggedness of terrain crossed by pedestrian travelers throughout time. The modeling of ruggedness incorporates multiple variables that include slope, vegetation, “jaggedness,” and ground temperature, and provides an alternative to Euclidian distance as a way of measuring and conceptualizing borderlands space. The data that informs our analysis is derived from comprehensive activity logs maintained by the humanitarian organization No More Deaths from 2012 to 2015, including 4,847 unique entries documenting the use of 27,439 gallons of clean drinking water at 512 distinct geotagged cache sites located along known pedestrian migration routes. The shift in migration routes toward more difficult terrain within this one high-traffic corridor reveals the ongoing impacts of the US Border Patrol’s strategy of “Prevention Through Deterrence.” In short, the pressures of enforcement on migration routes combine with everyday interference with humanitarian relief (No More Deaths and Coalición de Derechos Humanos 2018) to maximize the physiological harm experienced by unauthorized migrants. Among other outcomes, this explains both the persistence of mortality of unauthorized migrants and an increase in the rate of mortality over time (Martínez et al. 2014). The article concludes with several policy recommendations for US Customs and Border Protection that include making interference and vandalism of humanitarian aid a fireable offense; the formation of a border-wide agency tasked with search-and-rescue and emergency medical response, whose mission and operations are restrained by a clear firewall between itself and those of law enforcement; and ending Prevention Through Deterrence as a nationwide strategy.
Excessive Use of Force and Migrant Death and Disappearance in Southern Arizona
Journal on Migration and Human Security, 2024
In this article, we present a qualitative analysis of the events surrounding death or disappearance in autopsy and missing person reports from the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner (PCOME) in Arizona to highlight how interactions between border enforcement personnel and migrants can be deadly. We reviewed PCOME records of undocumented border crosser deaths between 2000 and 2023 and observed three main types of deadly U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) practices: reckless motor vehicle pursuits, aggressive strategies used to detain individuals who are on foot, and the use of lethal force. Our findings reveal that these tactics, which we argue constitute forms of "excessive use of force," represent significant yet overlooked factors contributing to migrant death and disappearance in southern Arizona. We make the following policy recommendations: 1. Immediate measures to prevent the loss of life (A). The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should mandate a ban on border enforcement methods that provoke fear, panic, or confusion. (B). DHS should take measures to substantially reduce the use of high-speed motor vehicle pursuits by USBP and other immigration enforcement officials. (C). DHS should ensure that USBP officers are compliant with Department of Justice (DOJ) standards on use of deadly force, in particular the policy that "Deadly force may not be used solely to prevent the escape of a fleeing suspect." 2. Investigate Border Fatalities Involving Border Enforcement Officers (A). We call on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct an official review of all medical examiner and coroner records along the U.S.-Mexico border for fatality cases in which border enforcement personnel were involved in any way in the circumstances surrounding death. (B). We encourage the formation of civilian review boards in border regions to review medical examiner and coroner records of migrant fatalities involving immigration officials as well as immigration officials' apprehension strategies immediately preceding fatal encounters with migrants.
2021
Thousands of undocumented border crossers have died while attempting to cross the US-México border since the 1990s. Prior studies have found that these deaths are a consequence of increased border enforcement efforts as well as of economic, political, and social conditions in immigrant-sending countries and in the United States. The present study contributes to this expanding body of literature. Drawing on data from the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner (PCOME), we provide information on the recovery of human remains either known or believed to be of undocumented border crossers in southern Arizona between FY 1990 and 2020. We find that during this period the remains of at least 3,356 undocumented border crossers were recovered in the region, with the majority being found since 2005. US Border Patrol apprehensions, which immigration scholars often use as proxy for undocumented migration trends, have decreased in that agency’s Tucson Sector since the mid-2000s. However, the rate of recovered remains of undocumented border crossers has largely increased even as apprehensions have declined, which is a dynamic that suggests undocumented migration in southern Arizona has become increasingly dangerous. We also find that the remains of undocumented border crossers were increasingly recovered from more remote areas of southern Arizona over time, which further supports this assertion. The PCOME records we examined over our study period suggest that migrants who have died in southern Arizona are largely male (84%), and, among identified decedents, 20-49 years of age (82%) and from México (80%). Most perished due to exposure (38%) or an undetermined cause of death (48%), and were successfully identified post-mortem (64%). Nevertheless, as highlighted throughout this report, we find important changes in the breakdown of these factors across time, for which we offer possible explanations. Our hope is that policymakers and the public will consider the data presented in this report, as access to empirical evidence is crucial when formulating public policy and when addressing the root causes of critical social concerns such as border-crosser deaths along the US-México border.
Journal of Borderlands Studies, 2021
Theories of migration deterrence have long posited that border enforcement infrastructure pushes migration routes into more rugged and deadly terrain, driving an increase in migrant mortality. Applying geospatial analysis of landscape and human variables in one highly-trafficked corridor of the Arizona / Sonora border, we test whether the expansion of surveillance infrastructure has in fact shifted migrants’ routes toward areas that are more remote and difficult to traverse. We deploy a modeling methodology, typically used in archaeological and military science, to measure the energy expenditure of persons traversing the borderlands. Outcomes of this model are then compared to the changes in border infrastructure and records of fatality locations. Findings show that there is a significant correlation between the location of border surveillance technology, the routes taken by migrants, and the locations of recovered human remains in the southern Arizona desert. Placed in the context of ongoing efforts by the United States to geographically expand and concentrate border surveillance and enforcement infrastructure, we argue that this suggests a third “funnel effect” that has the outcome of maximizing the physiological toll imposed by the landscape on unauthorized migrants, long after migration routes have moved away from traditional urban crossing areas.
Binational Migration Institute Report, 2021
Thousands of undocumented border crossers have died while attempting to cross the US-México border since the 1990s. Prior studies have found that these deaths are a consequence of increased border enforcement efforts as well as of economic, political, and social conditions in immigrant-sending countries and in the United States. The present study contributes to this expanding body of literature. Drawing on data from the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner (PCOME), we provide information on the recovery of human remains either known or believed to be of undocumented border crossers in southern Arizona between FY 1990 and 2020. We find that during this period the remains of at least 3,356 undocumented border crossers were recovered in the region, with the majority being found since 2005. US Border Patrol apprehensions, which immigration scholars often use as proxy for undocumented migration trends, have decreased in that agency’s Tucson Sector since the mid-2000s. However, the rate of recovered remains of undocumented border crossers has largely increased even as apprehensions have declined, which is a dynamic that suggests undocumented migration in southern Arizona has become increasingly dangerous. We also find that the remains of undocumented border crossers were increasingly recovered from more remote areas of southern Arizona over time, which further supports this assertion. The PCOME records we examined over our study period suggest that migrants who have died in southern Arizona are largely male (84%), and, among identified decedents, 20-49 years of age (82%) and from México (80%). Most perished due to exposure (38%) or an undetermined cause of death (48%), and were successfully identified post-mortem (64%). Nevertheless, as highlighted throughout this report, we find important changes in the breakdown of these factors across time, for which we offer possible explanations. Our hope is that policymakers and the public will consider the data presented in this report, as access to empirical evidence is crucial when formulating public policy and when addressing the root causes of critical social concerns such as border-crosser deaths along the US-México border.