Anonymous graves, the end of some migrants at the US border

The Eagle Pass Border Cemetery, with its statues and flower arrangements, looks like any other at first glance. But in the background, some 40 improvised crosses with PVC pipes reveal the tragedy in South Texas, where the American dream of many migrants ends in anonymous graves.

In a sea of ​​tombstones with Hispanic names, the small plates labeled with “John Doe” -Anglo-Saxon formula for a person without identification- and an American flag stuck in the ground next to the rudimentary crosses, accentuate the paradox of these migrants buried without identification. in the country where they were looking for a second chance.

The United States posted a record year at its southern border with more than 2.2 million apprehensions.

But another, heartbreaking mark, resizes the tragedy behind this statistic: from October 2021 to August, more than 700 migrants died trying to reach the United States, 36% more than the previous year.

“[La travesía] It was an ordeal.” said Alejandra, a 35-year-old Colombian who, without knowing how to swim, crossed the mighty Rio Grande to reach Texas. “But it was scarier to go back.”

Thirsty, and sheltering from the burning sun under a tree, Alejandra cried out for asylum for fear of organized crime in Colombia. “If we go back, they kill us”, he said looking at his three teenage children sitting next to him.

“The Undertaker”

Fearing deportation, many follow the “coyotes,” dragging the mortality into Texas.

Seventy miles from the border, last year 119 bodies were found in tiny Brooks County, 21% of all border deaths in 2021.

To avoid the authorities at the checkpoints in Falfurrias, the county’s main city, migrants enter the haciendas and succumb to temperatures of more than 30ºC, lost among dense arid vegetation and treacherous sands.

“It’s deadly out there” says Sheriff Urbino Martinez. Known as “Benny” in Falfurrias, he was nicknamed “The Undertaker” in Washington.

“We began to register the corpses found since 2009″, he said pointing to twenty thick volumes, where his department filed the information of 913 cases.

“I would multiply that by 5 or 10, to consider the bodies that we will never find”The sheriff said he opened a mobile morgue last year.

The folders are labeled “human remains”, and some photos do justice to the legend, showing only torsos, skulls or bones.

“With this heat, a body completely decomposes in 72 hours. And the animals destroy what is left. Javalies, rats, whatever is out there tears them apart.” says the sheriff, 66, in his office. “We have found bones even in rat caves.”

The morning that he received AFP, Martínez was returning from recovering a corpse, raising the balance to 80. “It is less compared to [los 119 de] 2021. But 80 is 80 too many!”

“It takes its toll on you, not only physically but mentally.”

No identification

“The most common cause of death is heat stroke or dehydration,” explained corinne Stern, in charge of the main morgue in South Texas.

“Until five years ago, the border occupied 30% of my time. Now, 75%, ”says the doctor, from whose neck she hangs a necklace with the Hebrew character for“ life ”.

In the reception of the morgue a painting reads “Let the dead teach the living”.

Inside, a slate listing dozens of “John Does” and “Jane Does.” “More than 95% of the border cases we receive do not have identification,” Stern said.

The enclosure is spotless, but the smell of decay is unbearable, penetrating through the mask.

“Last year we had about 296 border-related deaths. This year we are going in 250″, continues after analyzing a body, still with clothes, but reduced to bones, almost without skin or organs.

The “patient” was wearing a small olive green backpack. When the doctor picks it up, two lollipops in bright and colorful wrappers fall out, shockingly out of tune with the earthy ocher that impregnated her clothes and bones.

To try to identify her, DNA samples are taken, but for now she will be labeled as another “Jane Doe”.

“Where is my wife?”

In 2013, a year after 129 bodies were found in Brooks, Eduardo Canales founded the South Texas Center for Human Rights.

The ex-unionist installed water stations in the bowels of several farms to prevent migrants from getting poisoned by the cattle’s drinking troughs.

Canales, 74, supplies the blue plastic barrels that have location coordinates and a telephone number to call for help.

But when he began receiving calls from family members looking for loved ones who disappeared after crossing the border, he decided to expand his work.

“For me the most important thing is that families can close the cycle”, he says in frustration.

“Families don’t stop looking, they never give up. They keep wondering where is my wife? my brother? my daughter?”.

Many were buried anonymously in the Falfurrias cemetery, but a partnership with Texas State University and authorities allowed dozens of bodies to be exhumed and identified using fingerprints or DNA.

The effort has reduced unmarked graves in Brooks: Of the 119 migrants found in 2021, 107 were identified.

“But many more die and disappear without ever being found.” says Canales, pointing to the sea of ​​bushes around. “Here the only constant is death.”