Since the year 2000, the Pima County Medical Examiner has received nearly 4,000 sets of human remains from people who died crossing the U.S.-Mexico border into Arizona. Here, a cross marking the place where a man in his 30s died in 2009 lays a few hundred yards from one of the water stations the nonprofit Humane Borders sets out for migrants crossing the desert.
A count by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) found 2021 was a record deadly year for migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. In December, the agency said at least 650 people died borderwide in 2021, marking the deadliest year since it began recording in 2014.
More than 200 deaths occurred along the border in Arizona, according to data collected by the advocacy group Humane Borders and the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The grim milestones come as border officers continue to use the pandemic-era protocol Title 42, which sends most migrants and asylum seekers quickly back to Mexico.
Rights advocates say that policy and other deterrence measures, along with the high number of people arriving at the border, is driving deaths and injuries up.
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