New Mexico officials are hellbent on finding a way to identify the dead quickly in hopes of reuniting them with their relatives. However, it’s no easy feat.
There has been a surge in the rate of migrant mortality close to the southwest United States border with Mexico. The unprecedented amount of dead bodies is forcing officials in New Mexico to change how they respond to the deaths.
On Wednesday, it was revealed that the state’s Office of the Medical Investigator is updating its medical examiner forms. It will now include a check-box for “probable border crosser.” This came in response to the many dead found in the desert.
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According to last week’s statistics, migrant deaths have hit a critical point in the El Paso sector. The numbers are the highest El Paso has seen in the past 25 years.
The rise in mortality is occurring at a time when more migrants are attempting to cross into the U.S. illegally. New Mexico’s OMI is seeking to find what causes the deaths and identify the bodies so that they might be reunited with relatives.
Laura Mae Williams, a field investigator for New Mexico’s Office of the Medical Investigator, says. “We investigate the death to serve the living. The family wants to know, ‘Why did my person die?'”
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The first thing Williams and other investigators do when they arrive at a scene is search for a form of I.D. or any other way to give the deceased a name. They carry fingerprint scanners to try and get a quick match.
However, the desert heat aids decomposition and the fingerprints do not take long to disappear. “Even though they may or may not be identifiable, we have to (try) to positively identify the person so we can get them home,” Williams explains. “So that we can get them to their family.”
Those they have been unable to identify are in a morgue in Albuquerque. When nothing can help them do a quick match, a forensic anthropologist comes in.
The identification process may take years, but Mexico’s OMI focuses on getting results. Many of these migrants die not far from help, but they never know it.
According to one report, one woman, 31-year-old Yenefer Vazque’s body was found three to four days after her death. She was just a few hundred yards away from getting help from the dozens of law enforcement and emergency patrols around the area but never made it.
Sunland Park Fire Battalion Chief Ramiro Rios runs an agency that responds to rescue or body recovery requests. He said: “They’re half a mile away from a populated area, but they don’t know that. And so they go in circles trying to find a way out.”
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