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1. The Texas Landscape: Accounting for Migrant Mortality and the Challenges of a Justice of the Peace Medicolegal System

Author:
Courtney C. Siegert, Molly A. Kaplan, and M. Kate Spradley
Publication Date:
09-2024
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
This paper details the structural and resource challenges in Texas related to identifying migrant decedents, investigating their deaths, repatriating them, and adhering to legal and ethical requirements in addressing this humanitarian tragedy. While actors working on migrant decedent investigations in Arizona can map and provide accurate counts of migrant deaths, this is not yet possible for Texas cases. Texas’ mixed Medical Examiner/Justice of the Peace medicolegal system suffers from fragmentation across county jurisdictions, lack of resources, and minimal access to investigative tools for transnational families. These challenges produce a landscape where unidentified presumed migrants may structurally disappear (e.g., buried in temporarily marked graves as unidentified persons with no investigation or case tracking). The article highlights the work of Operation Identification (OpID), a humanitarian project formed to assist border counties with recovering, identifying, and repatriating migrant decedents. OpID’s extensive community outreach and collaboration with governmental and nongovernmental partners in the United States and Latin America have improved practices in some Texas counties. However, systemic change is still needed to address this humanitarian disaster. The article proposes that presumed migrant decedents be managed using a disaster victim identification (DVI) approach, which prioritizes identification, rather than how and why someone dies. It also proposes the establishment of regional Migrant Identification Centers (MICs) to streamline identification and repatriation efforts, while ensuring compliance with Texas law by Justices of the Peace (JPs). Centralization, the article argues, can lead to more accurate counts of migrant deaths and lay the groundwork for greater resources. The article also supports increased access to national databases including the National Combined DNA Indexing System (CODIS) and the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs). It argues that transnational families of missing persons be afforded expanded access to investigative tools (e.g., NamUs)
Topic:
Migration, Irregular Migration, Medicolegal System, and Humanitarian Forensic Action
Political Geography:
Mexico, Texas, and United States of America

2. Forced Migration, Deterrence, and Solutions to the Non-Natural Disaster of Migrant Deaths Along the US-Mexico Border and Beyond

Author:
Donald Kerwin and Alejandra Agustina Martínez
Publication Date:
09-2024
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
The International Organization of Migration has characterized the US-Mexico border as the world’s deadliest land migration route. By August 2024, a minimum of 5,405 persons had died or gone missing along this border since 2014, with record high numbers since 2021. Migrant deaths occur despite decades of: US Border Patrol search and rescue initiatives; public education campaigns targeting potential migrants on the dangers of irregular migration; dozens of academic publications and reports highlighting the root causes of these deaths; efforts by consular officials, local communities, and humanitarian agencies to locate, identify, and repatriate human remains; and desperate attempts by families to learn the fate of their missing loved ones. This paper introduces a special edition of the Journal on Migration and Human Security (JMHS), which draws on original research and the expertise of medical examiners, forensic anthropologists, social scientists, and humanitarian organizations to examine this persistent human tragedy. Many of the authors investigate migrant deaths in their professional capacities. They identify the dead, return remains to family members, and champion reforms to prevent deaths and better account for the dead and missing. This JMHS special edition represents a collaboration between the University of Arizona’s Binational Migration Institute, the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMSNY), and the Working Group on Mapping Migrant Deaths along the US Southwest Border. The Working Group includes scholars and practitioners from California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and New York who have met monthly since October of 2021. The special edition examines in granular detail the causes of migrant deaths, US border enforcement strategies and tactics, migrant death statistics, and the resource and capacity challenges faced by US counties along and leading from the US-Mexico border in investigating these deaths. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and many public officials attribute the deaths to the predations of human smugglers, the victims’ ignorance or assumption of risk, and the harsh “natural” conditions to which migrants finally succumb. This special issue also documents the underlying non-natural causes of this enduring tragedy, and offers both overarching and more targeted solutions to preventing and minimizing migrant deaths. The issue builds upon and extends seminal research on migrant deaths first featured in CMSNY publications more than two decades ago. Section I introduces the issue of migrant deaths by posing the question: Why should we care? Section II describes the genesis of “prevention through deterrence”—a border enforcement theory and strategy—and its evolution through subsequent Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and US Border Patrol strategic plans. It describes the immense enforcement infrastructure built around this idea by successive administrations and Congresses, and it explains why it has failed to stem irregular migration and how it has contributed to migrant deaths. Section III reviews the main causes of migrant deaths—forced migration, the combined effects of prevention through deterrence and border enforcement tactics, the denial of access to asylum, the border wall, the “naturalization” of migrant deaths, and the dominant vision of the border as a site of danger and exclusion. Section IV reviews the legislative standards for identifying, investigating, and reporting on migrant decedents. It also details the deficiencies of Border Patrol and county-level sources of data on deaths, and it outlines ways to strengthen data collection. Section V discusses the burdens placed on communities along and leading from the border in investigating deaths and their need for greater resources and capacity to address this problem. Section VI outlines the anomalies and challenges related to the Border Patrol’s migrant rescue program. Section VII describes international legal standards to guide the investigation of migrant deaths and two model programs. Section VIII sets forth policy recommendations to prevent migrant deaths and to honor and account for the dead.
Topic:
Borders, Deterrence, Forced Migration, and Irregular Migration
Political Geography:
North America, Mexico, and United States of America

3. An Analysis of Trends in the US Undocumented Population Since 2011 and Estimates of the Undocumented Population for 2021

Author:
Robert Warren
Publication Date:
09-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
In 2021, the undocumented population residing in the United States (US) increased slightly to 10.3 million, compared to 10.2 million the previous year. The gradual decline or near-zero growth of this population has continued for more than a decade. However, the large increases in apprehensions at the southern border in recent years, along with continued legislative gridlock in Congress, could portend a new era of growth of this population. Unfortunately, the data needed to determine whether the population will enter a period of growth after 2021 — or whether the era of near-zero growth will continue — will not be available for at least a year or two. The most accurate demographic estimates of the undocumented population are derived from data collected in the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. Estimates of the size of the undocumented population in 2022 will not be available until early 2024. This report focuses on the most significant trend in the undocumented population in the past decade — the remarkable decline of 1.9 million in the undocumented population from Mexico from 2011 to 2021. The decline for Mexico in this period was 600,000 more than the total population increase from the seven countries (in order) with the fastest growing US undocumented populations: Guatemala, Honduras, India, Venezuela, El Salvador, Brazil, and China. This paper finds that: • The long-term decline, or near-zero growth, of the total undocumented population that began in 2008 continued in 2021. • The percent of undocumented residents in the total US population declined from 3.8 percent in 2011 to 3.1 percent in 2021. • The undocumented population from Mexico declined from 6.4 million in 2011 to 4.4 million in 2021, a drop of 1.9 million in 10 years. • A total of 2.9 million, or 47 percent, of the US undocumented population from Mexico in 2011 had left the undocumented population by 2021. • The drop in the undocumented population from Mexico from 2011 to 2021 occurred nationwide, and the decline affected the undocumented population in nearly every state. • The fastest growing undocumented populations by country in the last 10 years were from Guatemala, Honduras, India, El Salvador, Venezuela, and Brazil. The combined undocumented populations from these six countries grew by 1.2 million. • Countries that had declining populations after 2011 included Poland, Peru, Ecuador, Korea, and Philippines, in addition to the large drop for Mexico. • California had the largest decline in undocumented residents — 665,000 from 2011 to 2021. The undocumented population from Mexico living in California during this period declined by 720,000. • The combined undocumented population in California, New York, and Illinois fell by more than one million from 2021 to 2011.
Topic:
Migration, Data, Undocumented Population, and Irregular Migration
Political Geography:
North America, Mexico, and United States of America