The Search and Rescue working group of No More Deaths has launched a new phone line for the loved ones of border crossers who are lost in the desert and for lost border crossers themselves. The goal of this new resource is to reduce deaths in the desert.

If you have been in touch with someone lost in the borderlands of Arizona or New Mexico within the last three days and you have significant information about that person’s location, call us now at 520-585-5881 to connect with a No More Deaths volunteer and possibly initiate a search.

We hope to one day be able to staff this phone line 24-7. During this initial phase, our capacity is limited, but we will answer and return calls as often and as quickly as possible.

We have posted extensive information for loved ones of lost and missing persons on our website, including different phone numbers to call for different kinds of cases. This information was previously found on the website of La Coalición de Derechos Humanos and has been adapted and updated.

We want to honor and recognize the valuable work of Derechos. They started taking missing-persons calls 15 years ago, and they ran a Missing Migrant Hotline from 2013 to 2016. As they explain on their website, “The Missing Migrant Hotline Project was an effort to help families locate loved ones who go missing while crossing the border. Over time this project grew and changed with the humanitarian crisis on the U.S.-Mexico Border. We saw this project as not just a direct service project, but one that focused on providing tools and resources to help people searching for their loved ones. Even as we discontinue the hotline, we still see this transition as an important opportunity to share the resources and experiences we have gained over the years.”

We respect the work that has come before us and are grateful for it. We thank Derechos for giving us their blessing to create a new phone line modeled on theirs, molded to fit the capacity that we have as No More Deaths volunteers.

You can learn more about Derechos’s ongoing work in southern Arizona on their website.