Abuse documentation, Press releases, Updates

Newly Released – El Paso Sector Migrant Death Map and Database

Sticky

On March 18, No More Deaths released a searchable map, database, and report documenting the upsurge in migrant deaths in the New Mexico and the far West Texas borderlands. The “El Paso Sector Migrant Death Database” provides the most comprehensive account to date of the past 15 years of migrant deaths along the US/Mexico border in CBP’s El Paso Sector, which includes all of New Mexico, as well as El Paso and Hudspeth counties in Texas. 

The El Paso Sector Migrant Death Database comprises a downloadable database and map, similar to the OpenGIS Initiative for Deceased Migrants published by Humane Borders for the state of Arizona, along with a report briefly analyzing this data. We found that:

  • CBP is undercounting migrant deaths in the El Paso Sector: From 2012 to 2022, our database shows a higher number of deaths than CBP’s data for the sector, with some years showing as much as two, three, or even four times (in 2020) as many deaths.
  • 15% of all migrant deaths were caused by use of force, wall falls, Border Patrol chases, or were deaths that occurred in custody. CBP’s records report only a fraction of these CBP-related deaths. In some cases, field investigators stated that they were obstructed from performing a proper investigation or from interviewing BP agents involved in a death.
  • Along with a sharp increase in overall deaths in BP’s El Paso Sector, women now account for more deaths than men, a statistic unprecedented anywhere else along the border, for any year. One explanation for this is the increasing inability of people to seek asylum at official ports of entry, which forces people not prepared for a desert journey into more remote areas.
  • Remains are increasingly recovered closer to populated areas. While the US border policy of Prevention Through Deterrence initially drew inspiration from the “success” of El Paso’s Operation Hold The Line in pushing migrants away from urban areas, our data show that, due to increased border militarization, an urban area can be essentially as dangerous and deadly as the middle of nowhere.

Demands and recommendations

CBP and the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) have time and again proven themselves dishonest in their accounting of migrant deaths and of CBP-related deaths. In this report, we reveal one small piece of what is missing from their data. But data and transparency will never bring back the lives lost, or stop the ongoing crisis of death and disappearance that is a direct result of US border policy. The only way to prevent the death and suffering that have become so commonplace in the US-Mexico borderlands is to end the policy of Prevention Through Deterrence, abolish the US Border Patrol, and dismantle the border barriers that have divided so many communities. At a minimum, we demand the following:

  1. While CBP should make good on its obligation to the GAO to provide complete data on migrant deaths and take transparency seriously, their accounting will never be trustworthy. Entities independent of border enforcement agencies must provide oversight, data collection, and accountability, working with state and county medical examiners, justices of the peace, law enforcement, and other organizations to make their data reflect the best information available. 
  1. CBP and the OPR must apply CBP-related death designations consistently and transparently, and allow outside oversight of this process.
  1. Restrictions on asylum, like Texas’ Senate Bill 4, or those proposed by the White House and US senators for 2024, will cause death, injury, and suffering on the US-Mexico border, as people escaping violence, poverty, and climate change are forced to find alternative ways to enter the United States. In accordance with US and international law, CBP must open ports of entry to asylum seekers and remove all restrictions on access to the asylum process, including illegal policies of turnbacks and metering.
  1. End the practices of vehicle and foot chases which have made CBP the deadliest federal law enforcement agency in the nation.
  1. The border wall is a humanitarian disaster. Our data show the number of deaths caused by the wall are far higher than CBP reports. Walls have not reduced migration, but serve only to cause untold suffering; they must all be taken down.
Press releases, Updates

Border Patrol Leaves Hundreds of Asylum Seekers Stranded in the Cold, Detains and Threatens Aid Workers Attempting to Respond

Sticky
Inches of snow fell along the border wall near Sasabe, Arizona this weekend

Approximately 400 asylum seekers waited along the border wall near Sasabe, Arizona yesterday, in hopes of being picked up by Border Patrol. 

Border Patrol never came. During the night, snow and freezing temperatures set in. By this morning, a few inches of snow had accumulated and humanitarian aid volunteers found hundreds of people still stranded along the wall with no sign of a Border Patrol response. 

Volunteers with No More Deaths, Tucson Samaritans, and Green Valley Samaritans began evacuating people to the Border Patrol Station in Sasabe. Many volunteers were detained and threatened with arrest by Border Patrol agents who said that they were informed of the situation but did not plan to drive out to address it. As the snow melted and road conditions turned muddy, volunteer vehicles continued to evacuate people despite threats of arrest in anticipation of more dangerously cold conditions tonight.

Now, Border Patrol is refusing to allow more people into the station to be processed. At the time of writing, there are over 250 adults and children left exposed to the elements outside of the Sasabe station. Despite persisting for over three months, Border Patrol has failed to adequately allocate resources to address this ongoing crisis.

People cannot be left out in such life-threatening conditions. A response must be enacted now to establish adequate shelters, warming centers, and other basic necessities for those who seek safety and asylum in Sasabe.

Fundraising appeals

URGENT: Emergency Humanitarian Relief at the Border

Sticky
Photo by Leslie Ann Epperson

Donate today to help sustain our humanitarian aid efforts at the border

DONATE NOW

There is a humanitarian crisis ongoing at the border as we are seeing drastically increased numbers of asylum seekers crossing in remote mountain areas. Customs and Border Protection has not been adequately responding, at times even threatening humanitarian aid volunteers with arrest while leaving hundreds stranded in deadly, hypothermic conditions. No More Deaths / No Más Muertes, fellow humanitarian aid groups, community groups, and individuals have stepped up to help care for them, but the situation is continuing to escalate. The Tucson Sentinel wrote an article that illuminates the suffering and dire need, please check it out here.

Thus far we have re-allocated funds to manage this support, but those funds are running low and our work is far from over. We are asking our community to help us by making a donation today so we can continue to provide blankets, clothing, food, shoes, and other humanitarian aid. Our volunteers are working tirelessly to get these supplies directly to the people in danger of hypothermia and exposure due to the winter weather.

DONATE NOW

If you would prefer to send your donation via mail, please be sure to indicate that it is for Emergency Border Wall Support send it to:
No More Deaths
PO Box 40782
Tucson, AZ 85717

Monetary support is greatly appreciated, but we are also excited to announce that we will temporarily be able to accept physical donations at the Global Justice Center at 225 E 26th St, Tucson, AZ, for our local supporters. You can drop off daily, any time between 9:00am and 7:00pm until January 9th.

Here are the top priority items we need:

  • Tarps
  • Large Tents (camping or military style)
  • Emergency Blankets
  • Blankets
  • Warm clothing for adults and kids: jackets, hats, gloves, rain ponchos
  • Lighters, waterproof matches
  • Contractor bags
  • Toilet paper
  • Hand sanitizer
  • Menstrual pads
  • Cold medicine
  • Food – pop top cans, MREs, granola bars, bread
  • Baby formula
  • Diapers
DONATE NOw

We appreciate our community for continuing to support our humanitarian aid efforts. Without you, it would not be possible to make a significant impact on the crisis. Please email us at fundraising@nomoredeaths.org with any questions.

Press releases, Updates

Border Patrol Neglects Asylum Seekers in Winter Storm, Threatens Aid Workers with Arrest

Sticky
The road along the border wall near Sasabe

SASABE, Arizona – Last night, humanitarian aid workers scrambled to triage and support 300 asylum seekers stranded along the border wall east of Sasabe, Arizona. A winter storm blew in, dumping rain upon the hundreds of men, women, children, and babies left without adequate shelter in the remote location. Recognizing the urgency of the situation, volunteers notified Border Patrol that they would be driving asylum seekers to the Sasabe substation to be processed, to get them out of the life-threatening cold.

Volunteers were told that this was illegal. Meanwhile, Border Patrol agents refused to send personnel to the area, citing road conditions and limited space in vehicles as the reason for their lack of response. They advised volunteers to call 911 if there was a medical emergency.

The message from Border Patrol was loud and clear: you’re on your own.

Despite the constraints of providing humanitarian aid in a place where cell phone service is limited and the nearest ambulance is two hours away, humanitarian aid volunteers did place multiple calls to 911. Through the rainy day and the frigid night, no emergency services arrived.   “Without us volunteers everybody would have died. Everybody would have died,” one volunteer responding to the situation said. “With no tarps, no rain gear, no food, and no water, 300 adults, elders, and children could have died from exposure. We were a group of 8-15 volunteers triaging 300 people, trying to prevent hundreds of deaths. We cannot keep this up. We are not meant for this. We need bigger resources and responses.”  

There are still hundreds of people stranded along the wall, waiting to be picked up by Border Patrol.

Abuse documentation, Press releases, Updates

NEW REPORT: “Separate and Deadly” Reveals Discriminatory 911 Call System in US/Mexico Borderlands

Sticky

TUCSON, Arizona – On November 14th, No More Deaths released Separate and Deadly: Segregation of 911 Emergency Services in the Arizona Borderlands. The report is the latest installment of Disappeared, a four-part series that examines Border Patrol’s role in the crisis of mass death and disappearance in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.

Separate and Deadly analyzes the Pima County Sheriff’s Department’s emergency response system and the segregation of 911 calls in the border region. The findings of the report shed light on a discriminatory system in which vastly different responses are allocated to callers based on their perceived citizenship status. For people migrating through the region, their distress calls to 911 are customarily transferred to Border Patrol – an agency that has already demonstrated a deadly negligence when it comes to emergency response and rescue.

From the report:

“In March 2018, a man contacted 911 eleven times over the course of ten hours. He was lost and alone. As the hours passed, his condition clearly deteriorated, and his voice began to fade. It appeared that Border Patrol was not actively searching for him… Pima County dispatchers continued to transfer his call to Border Patrol every time he called… The county’s own Search and Rescue team was never notified, and the county never activated a search for him. Eventually the man stopped calling. The outcome of his case is unknown.”

The No More Deaths team reviewed thousands of 911 calls and took testimony from humanitarian aid volunteers, in addition to other relevant data sources. In 99% of the calls where the caller was presumed to be undocumented, no intake or assessment was conducted, in 68% of the calls the dispatcher lacked fluency in Spanish to be able to communicate effectively and 50% of the callers were given no notice before being transferred to Border Patrol. 

“Not only is call segregation based on presumed immigration status unlawful, the consequences of such practices are deadly,” says Parker Deighan, one of the report’s contributors. “The findings of this report raise serious questions about the county’s complicity in the ongoing crisis of death and disappearance.”

In 2023 alone, the remains of 175 people have been found in Arizona. Countless more remain disappeared.

Open Positions, Updates

EMERGENCY REPORTS OPERATOR

Application Deadline: October 12, 2024
Start Date: November 6, 2024
Apply Here: https://form.jotform.com/242536227479161

At No More Deaths, we are seeking an Emergency Reports Operator to join the Missing Persons Hotline Team. This role involves contacting Border Patrol agents to initiate searches for missing persons and collaborating with No More Deaths partners and community groups on both sides of the border. The operator will respond to family members’ requests and provide humanitarian, civil, and non-violent assistance in addressing the missing persons crisis in the border areas, ensuring compassionate and effective support for those in need.

About No More Deaths

We are a humanitarian organization based in southern Arizona, functioning as a ministry under our fiscal sponsor, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson. Our mission is to end migrant death and suffering through civil initiative while defending fundamental human rights within our community. Guided by transformative justice values, we operate as a non-hierarchical organization. This means that employees are expected to actively participate in various operational functions and attend organizational meetings. Our non-hierarchical structure promotes collaboration and inclusivity by distributing key responsibilities—such as decision-making, conflict resolution, staffing, finance, communications with allied groups, and event planning—across all employees.

Job Duties and Responsibilities

The Emergency Report Operator will work both from our Tucson office and remotely. Duties include:

Emergency Reporting and Communication

  • Utilize information and coordinates from the Hotline Operator to determine appropriate Border Patrol stations and make emergency reports.
  • Make calls to Border Patrol for emergency or active cases and request searches for missing persons.
  • Follow up and maintain communication every two hours with Border Patrol via phone and email.
  • Maintain communication with the Hotline Operator every two hours, relaying information from Border Patrol and updating them until the case is closed.
  • Collect and document information during interactions, including filing notes, recordings, and logs as needed.

Community and Team Engagement

  • Collaborate with working group members to plan, organize, and participate in local community projects and team events, ensuring flexibility in scheduling as needed.
  • Accompany and support community members to their immigration court appointments, as needed.
  • Actively participate in group meetings, offering feedback and collaborating on projects while engaging with the community on humanitarian efforts

Training and Development

  • Attend training courses offered by the team to enhance job performance and stay informed on current operations, projects, and political climate changes.

Communication and Support

  • Maintain consistent communication with all working group members, responding promptly to messages via Signal and WhatsApp.
  • Remain calm, composed, and focused while performing tasks in stressful situations.

Requirements

Language Proficiency

  • Fluent in Spanish, with proficiency in English preferred.

Local Residency

  • Residency in Tucson.

Communication Skills

  • Ability to communicate effectively with individuals in distress, handle high-stress situations, and maintain composure in intense or emotionally charged conversations.

Team Collaboration

  • Ability to effectively contribute as a team member within the Missing Persons Hotline.
  • Demonstrates respectful, empathetic, and collaborative communication with working group members.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Experience with Communication Tools: Experience using Signal and WhatsApp.
  • Technical Skills: Basic computer proficiency and ability to multitask effectively.

Contract Conditions

  • Duration and Renewal: 12-month contract with the option for annual renewal, subject to qualitative assessment at three and six months.
  • Training and Observation: Includes a two-week training period and a 90-day paid observation period.
  • Work Hours: 30 hours per week.
  • Hotline active hours: Monday – Friday, 8:00 am to 10:00 pm
  • Compensation: Monthly salary of $22 per hour.
  • Work Materials: Provided work materials include a phone, laptop, and hotspot.

Our Package Includes

  • Work Model: Hybrid model with 50% work from home.
  • Benefits: Flexible PTO and Winter Vacation, medical and dental coverage.

No More Deaths value diversity and strongly encourages applications from people of color, people with disabilities, women, and LGBTQ+ individuals. We especially welcome candidates with personal ties to the border or those who come from affected communities. U.S. citizenship is not a requirement. No More Deaths is an equal opportunity employer.

News coverage
Link

NEW STUDY BY ADVOCACY GROUPS ALLEGES FEDERAL UNDERREPORTING OF MIGRANT DEATHS

Sam Karas, Big Bend Sentinel, 10 April 2024

FAR WEST TEXAS — On March 18, the nonprofit advocacy and rescue group No Más Muertes (No More Deaths) released a groundbreaking report detailing migrant deaths in Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) El Paso Sector, which spans all of New Mexico, El Paso and Hudspeth County. Data collected by the nonprofit suggests that the rate of migrants dying along the southwest border is skyrocketing — in their findings, No Más Muertes alleges that CBP is underreporting these deaths by as many as four times their actual figures. 

Continue reading →
News coverage
Link

A NEW REPORT SHOWS SKYROCKETING DEATHS IN EL PASO, NEW MEXICO BORDER REGION

Melissa del Bosque, The Border Chronicle, 9 April 2024

As safe corridors for migration disappear, more people risk their lives crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. And more people die. A new report by the nonprofit No More Deaths, along with a searchable map and database, documents the increasing number of migrant deaths at the border in New Mexico and far West Texas. Until now, not much research has been done on the deaths of people migrating through this section of the border. The project was led by Bryce, a No More Deaths volunteer (who asked that we not use his last name because the Far Right has recently been targeting the group). He, along with several others, have created the most comprehensive database to date of deaths in the Border Patrol’s El Paso Sector, which includes New Mexico and two counties in Texas, El Paso and Hudspeth.

The report covers 15 years, from 2008 to 2023, and it shows many disturbing trends, including the acceleration of deaths that has accompanied “prevention through deterrence,” the U.S. government’s strategy implemented in the 1990s to push migrants into more remote, dangerous crossings. That strategy is now morphing into something all the more tragic as people, increasingly women and children, are barred from accessing asylum and are dying at the doorstep of American cities and towns. In this Q&A, Bryce talks about documenting these deaths, and the discoveries that both shocked and angered him in creating this new report.

Continue reading →
News coverage
Link

GROUPS: CBP UNDERCOUNTING MIGRANT DEATHS ON THE BORDER

Julian Resendiz, Border Report, 8 April 2024

EL PASO, Texas – A regional humanitarian nonprofit says the federal government is undercounting migrant deaths and continues to engage in practices such as chases of suspected smugglers that result in third-party fatalities.

Research published in March by the Arizona-based No More Deaths shows two to four times as many migrants died in West Texas and Southern New Mexico in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020 than reported by the government. The deaths resulted from dehydration or hypothermia (depending on the season), falls from mountains or the border wall, drownings, being struck by motor vehicles and being injured during law-enforcement chases.

The group attributes the undercount – which it documents case-by-case in a public database with more than 400 deaths – to insufficient follow-up with hospitals, local police and medical examiners after border agents or officers come upon injured parties or skeletal remains.

Continue reading →
News coverage
Link

MIGRANTS IN SASABE STUCK IN FREEZING TEMPS OVERNIGHT, INCLUDING FAMILIES

Danyelle Khmara, AZPM News, 13 February 2024

People began crossing the border Friday, in a remote area east of Sasabe, including many families with children.

Aid volunteer Bryce Peterson says Border Patrol only picked up a limited number of people, so aid groups began bringing migrants to the Border Patrol station in Sasabe.

“Throughout the course of the night another 200 people had showed up,” Peterson said. “So we were dealing with about 400 people who were all freezing cold, wet from being snowed and rained on. All the people that had been walking throughout the night were in really bad shape.”

Migrants have been crossing in that remote area for months, and aid groups are asking Border Patrol to set up a warming station and processing center in the remote area and increase processing capacity at the station in Sasabe.

Seemingly at odds with the aid workers’ account, Customs and Border Protection says they prioritized the humanitarian response to the migrants abandoned in the cold, triaged the situation and prioritized the most vulnerable migrants for transportation.

By Sunday morning, all the migrants had been taken into Border Patrol custody. There were no serious medical emergencies or deaths reported.

Updates

BORDER PATROL LEAVES HUNDRED OF ASYLUM SEEKERS STRANDED IN THE COLD, DETAINS AND THREATENS AID WORKERS ATTEMPTING TO RESPOND

Approximately 400 asylum seekers waited along the border wall near Sasabe, Arizona yesterday, in hopes of being picked up by Border Patrol. 

Border Patrol never came. During the night, snow and freezing temperatures set in. By this morning, a few inches of snow had accumulated and humanitarian aid volunteers found hundreds of people still stranded along the wall with no sign of a Border Patrol response. 

Volunteers with No More Deaths, Tucson Samaritans, and Green Valley Samaritans began evacuating people to the Border Patrol Station in Sasabe. Many volunteers were detained and threatened with arrest by Border Patrol agents who said that they were informed of the situation but did not plan to drive out to address it. As the snow melted and road conditions turned muddy, volunteer vehicles continued to evacuate people despite threats of arrest in anticipation of more dangerously cold conditions tonight.

Now, Border Patrol is refusing to allow more people into the station to be processed. At the time of writing, there are over 250 adults and children left exposed to the elements outside of the Sasabe station. Despite persisting for over three months, Border Patrol has failed to adequately allocate resources to address this ongoing crisis.
People cannot be left out in such life-threatening conditions. A response must be enacted now to establish adequate shelters, warming centers, and other basic necessities for those who seek safety and asylum in Sasabe.

I Will Help