The Mercury News

More migrant deaths recorded in heat along Arizona border

- By Anita Snow

PHOENIX >> The bodies of an unusually large number of migrants who died in Arizona’s borderland­s are being recovered this summer amid record temperatur­es in the sun-scorched desert and rugged mountains.

An increase in migrant deaths also has been noted in Texas, and rescues are up throughout the border with Mexico.

The nonprofit group Humane Borders, which maps the recoveries of bodies in Arizona using data from the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office in Tucson, said 43 sets of human remains were found in the state’s border region last month — the hottest June on record for Phoenix. Forecaster­s say highs in Phoenix, where temperatur­es last month regularly soared above 110 degrees Fahrenheit, tend to be similar to those in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert north of Mexico.

Not all 43 of those people died in June, but at least 16 had been dead for just a day and another 13 for less than a week when they were found, said Humane Borders mapping coordinato­r Mike Kreyche. The group’s figures include all bodies recovered of people believed to have been migrants and are higher than the number of deaths reported by the Border Patrol, which only counts those it handles in the course of its work.

Kreyche noted that the 127 sets of remains found during the first half of this year are far higher than the 96 bodies recovered during the same period last year. This year’s six-month recovery toll also is higher than that of all of 2017, when 123 sets of remains were found near Arizona’s border with Mexico.

Exposure is the most commonly listed cause of

death.

Texas officials say they also have seen an increase in migrant deaths this year.

The Brooks County Sheriff’s Department in southern Texas last month reported 36 migrant deaths in the first five months of 2021, more than all of last year.

The growing number of recovered bodies comes as border officials warn of increased dangers as temperatur­es soar this summer.

Although most migrants now cross through Texas, decades of enforcemen­t there and in California pushes many others into hostile areas of Arizona where water and food is unavailabl­e.

The U.S. Border Patrol’s Yuma Sector gathered reporters this month just feet from the U.S.-Mexico border at the Colorado River to emphasize the risks migrants take crossing the Sonoran Desert.

Rescues have been up, keeping the Border Patrol’s specialize­d search and rescue units and air and marine operations busy.

The Border Patrol’s El Centro Sector in eastern California reported Monday that its agents had rescued three migrants suffering from heat-related illness in the Jacumba Wilderness near Ocotillo in two separate events on July 1.

 ?? ROSS D. FRANKLIN — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE ?? Along the Arizona-Mexico border, the bodies of an unusually large number of migrants are being recovered this summer amid record temperatur­es.
ROSS D. FRANKLIN — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE Along the Arizona-Mexico border, the bodies of an unusually large number of migrants are being recovered this summer amid record temperatur­es.

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