DEADLY CROSSING
Fewer migrants brave the desert, but more are dying
AJO — Perched on a hilltop, Border Patrol Agent Daniel Hernandez scanned the vast sun-baked desert below through a set of binoculars.
His dark hair glistened with sweat. The thermometer on his truck registered 104 degrees. Suddenly, his portable radio crackled to life.
A sensor had detected human movement near Charlie Bell Pass, the voice on the radio said, about 15 miles southwest of Hernandez’s location. A Department of Homeland Security helicopter had swooped in to investigate. Two men in camouflage, likely undocumented migrants, were spotted headed south carrying backpacks and water jugs.
Soon Hernandez was barreling through the desert on a rough dirt road deep into the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge to find the two men.
It’s Hernandez’s job to catch people trying to enter
the country illegally. But the searing summer heat added to the urgency.
Every summer, hundreds of migrants die crossing the Southwest border. But nowhere is crossing more deadly than Arizona’s western desert. And already the number of dead migrants found this year in southern Arizona is way up.
As of the end of June — with at least two more months of searing summer heat — 81 bodies or skeletal remains had been recovered in southern Arizona, most of them in the western desert, according to data from the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office, which covers the western desert. That is 26 more than the 55 remains recovered during the same six-month period in 2016.
The number of remains discovered so far this year is on pace to exceed the 154 that were found in 2016.
It’s particularly alarming because the overall number of Border Patrol apprehensions is down this year, and remains at some of the lowest levels in decades, said Chelsea Halstead, program manager for the Tucson-based Colibri Center for Human Rights, which helps identify the remains of migrants found in the desert.
“Less people are crossing and more people are dying. What we are seeing is more deaths,” she said.
It’s too early to tell whether 2017 will be a particularly deadly year for migrants, said Gregory Hess, chief medical examiner of the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Many of the remains recovered so far were found by humanitarian groups, Hess said. And many of the remains were skeletons, or partial skeletons, indicating they had not died recently.
“I think that is why our number is a little bit higher this year: It’s just because people are out there looking,” Hess said. “Just because people find remains in 2017 doesn’t mean the person died in 2017.”
No More Deaths, and two San Diegobased humanitarian groups, Angeles del Desierto and Aguilas del Desierto Inc., have conducted searches this year in the western desert of Arizona. The Aguilas group has been traveling to the western desert every two to three weeks and has recovered at least 22 remains this year, said Jose Genis Gonzalez, the group’s vice president.
Most of the remains were recovered during searches on the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and the Barry Goldwater Air Force Range, Genis said.
The group has posted pictures and videos of several of the remains on its Facebook page in an attempt to identify them.
Twelve of the remains were recovered on the vast bombing range west of Ajo where Air Force jets from bases in Arizona conduct training exercises, Genis said.
Smugglers use the bombing range to guide migrants illegally into the U.S. because they know the area is not patrolled by the Border Patrol, he said. As a result, Genis believes the remains of many more migrants haven’t been found.
After allowing searches of the bombing range on May 27 and June 10 leading to the discovery of the 12 remains, officials at Luke Air Force Base turned down the group’s request to conduct a third search on the range on July 1 and 2, Genis said.
Maj. Rebecca Heyse, a Luke Air Force Base spokeswoman, confirmed that the request was denied. She said there wasn’t time to implement safety precautions in the area where the group wanted to search.
The western desert of Arizona is larger than many states. Migrants can walk for days without encountering water, and can easily become disoriented and lost, Hernandez said.
The scorching summer heat adds to the danger. Daily temperatures routinely soar above 100 degrees and can spike much higher, as they did on June 21, when the temperature hit 118 degrees during a record-breaking heat wave that baked the area for nine days.
“I would say it’s the hardest place to cross in terms of distance and remoteness,” Hernandez said. “There is not a lot of infrastructure. Then you add the heat, no water, no roads, it makes it that much harder.”
A second heat wave hit southern Arizona last week, sending temperatures here above 110 degrees.
Yet migrants continue to cross through the western desert.
Many are unaware of the risks, Hernandez said. The only way to navigate the wilderness is by hiring smuggling guides, he said. But the guides often underplay the amount of water needed, and the number of days it will take to walk through the desert.
“The overwhelming number of people do not know the true risks,” Hernandez said.
That became evident Thursday, when Hernandez raced to find the two migrants spotted near Charlie Bell Pass.
After about half an hour, Hernandez reached the area where the migrants had been spotted from the air walking away from a large white water tank. The tank, identifiable from a distance by a blue flag fluttering atop a long pole, had been placed there by Humane Borders, one of several humanitarian groups that work to prevent migrant deaths.
The helicopter was circling low when Hernandez climbed out of his truck, along with a second Border Patrol agent who had responded in a separate vehicle. But the pilot radioed that he had lost sight of the migrants. Soon after, running low on fuel, the helicopter pilot flew off, leaving Hernandez and the other agent to search on foot.
The agents split up. Hernandez followed as the other agent took the lead.
Hernandez walked facing the ground, trying to track the migrants’ footprints in the sand. But with the sun overhead, footprints were hard to see.
After searching for about a mile and a half, Hernandez paused next to a deep wash, staring at what appeared to be handprints, perhaps left by someone trying to lay low in the sand.
A moment later, the other agent radioed from a hilltop, “I’ve got eyes on one of them.”
In the distance, Hernandez could see the silhouette of a man carrying a backpack standing still on the side of a hill.
The man started running, cresting a ridge with the second Border Patrol agent in pursuit.
The migrant was apprehended shortly after.
After escorting the migrant back to the Border Patrol vehicles in handcuffs, the agents searched his backpack. They found two black plastic gallon jugs full of water. He had dropped two other water jugs in the desert during the chase.
The agents removed the handcuffs and placed the man in the cargo hold of one of the Border Patrol vehicles. Hernandez handed him a bottle of cold water from a cooler in his truck.
“Take small sips,” Hernandez instructed. “Don’t gulp it.”
Sitting in the cargo hold, the migrant said his name was Roger Paiz Leyton. He said he was 28 years old and came from Leon, Nicaragua, “looking for a better life.”
He said he had been walking in the desert for 10 days, trying to reach Gila Bend, which is about 80 miles from the border. Ultimately, he hoped to reach Los Angeles, where he said he has cousins.
Paiz said he started walking from the town of Sonoyta with about eight or 10 other migrants. They came from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico.
Several turned around and went back.
“When they saw how dry it is, that there’s no water, that they only had enough water to last three days, they went back,” Paiz said.
Paiz said at one point he ran out of water for two days. He said he had just replenished his four water jugs when the Border Patrol helicopter spotted him and the other migrant who escaped. Hernandez asked if he was carrying water back to a group still in the desert, concerned they might be in distress. Paiz said no, he wasn’t.
Along the desert route, Paiz said he encountered “around 10 cadavers.”
“Some of them still had flesh, others were just skeletons,” Paiz said.
The remains, he said, made him realize how dangerous the desert route is.
“The problem is the (smugglers) don’t really tell you what it’s like” to cross this part of the desert, Paiz said. “They told me it’s pretty here. They said it would be maybe five days of walking at the most.”
After the brief interview, Hernandez handed Paiz another bottle of cold water, and a protein cookie. The agents closed the back door and transported Paiz back to the Border Patrol’s station in Why.
As he drove, Hernandez said Paiz was lucky to be alive.
“I’m sure this man did not even imagine how tough it was going to be,” Hernandez said. “Most people do not stand a chance out here more than a few days.”
“Less people are crossing and more people are dying. What we are seeing is more deaths.” CHELSEA HALSTEAD COLIBRI CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS