Los Angeles Times (California)
By Nigel Duara
June 3, 2015
In
southern Arizona, the heat reaches triple digits by June and the number
of dead rise with it. Crossing the border in this stretch of desert has
always been a dangerous
proposition for immigrants trying to enter the country illegally.
For
this reason, a recent drop in the number of bodies recovered along the
border is not necessarily a sign that fewer people will die trying to
cross into the United
States in months to come, authorities say.
“Our busiest months are June, July and August,” said Gregory Hess, chief medical examiner in Pima County.
This
year in April and May, the Pima County medical examiner’s office
reported receiving just five bodies each month of people believed to be
attempting to cross the border,
down from the average of about 10 in each of those months in previous
years.
The office has identified 33 bodies of people believed to be trying to cross the desert into Arizona this calendar year.
The
number of remains found is considered just a fraction of the number of
unrecovered bodies across the desert, some of which will take years to
find.
Pima
County’s medical examiner’s office serves most of the Arizona border,
including Cochise and Santa Cruz counties, but the office doesn’t simply
count every body found
in the desert.
“We
look at location, circumstances, property, maybe something they were
carrying indicates their place of origin,” Hess said, noting that most
of the bodies are in an
advanced state of decomposition when they’re found. The office works
with Mexican and other authorities to identify remains and return them
to their homelands.
The
Tucson section of the Border Patrol was long the highest-trafficked hub
for border crossings. That designation has shifted to a section of
Texas since 2012, but an
unexpected crush of unaccompanied minors and women that overwhelmed the
immigration system last year could prove problematic once again to the
border stations in Arizona.
From
2002 to 2013, an average of 177 remains were recovered from the desert
each year, according to a report by the Pima County medical examiner's
office. The highest
number recovered was 223 in 2010.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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