Episode 6 - Missing person: identification process

Hi everyone!!! Welcome to "Borderlands", a multi-episode podcast about the US-Mexico migration border policies and their impact on borderlands communities, in one of the most militarized, controlled and deadly counties of the border: Pima county, in the State of Arizona. I’d like in this new episode to reflect on what happens to those whom the desert has engulfed. For some of them, their bodies will be found by hikers, hunters, ranchers, Tohono O’Odham nation members, by people living in the Borderlands. For others, the desert, its climate and its fauna will take care of erasing their traces in the upcoming days and they could be lost forever. It’s impossible to say exactly how many people have died trying to cross the border through the Arizonian Sonoran Desert or how many bodies of people are currently there without having been recovered to date. The figures available are those meticulously kept by the PCOME, the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner. Since the 90’s, the PCOME, based in Tucson, have recorded the cases that pass through these services, which represent a good part of the border between Arizona and Mexico. According to these figures, between 1990 and March 2022, 3624 people died trying to cross the US Mexico border in Pima County, Arizona. 64% have been identified by the PCOME. At the end of 2021, 1244 people remain to be identified. This sixth episode will focus on the different key players intervening in the identification process of people found dead in the desert of Sonora. A warning, this episode may contain parts that are difficult to listen to. Once pointed at lost souls, the desert, its climate and its fauna can descend without warning and erase the traces of a body in a few days. No words can soften the planned and unjust violence of what is playing out in the Sonoran Desert. In this episode we’ll listen to officials, practitioners, NGOs, researchers working on the identification process in Pima county, Arizona. Let’s begin with Mario AGUNDEZ, border patrol missing migrant program’s coordinator for the Tucson sector. He explains the missing migrant program of the border patrol agency…The Border Patrol missing migrant program works in partnership with different institutions… Let’s continue to listen to Mario Agundez talking about the work with the PCOME, Pima county office of the medical examiner… (...) Thank you for following “Borderlands” … a multi-episode podcast about the US-Mexico migration border policies and their impact on communities …and don’t forget: this episode was mixed by Nicolas Puissant. Merci Nico!  Speakers of Episode #6: Mario AGUNDEZ, border patrol missing migrant program’s coordinator for the Tucson sector Jason de Leon, Professor of anthropology at UCLA (University of California in Los Angeles), president of the Colibrí center for human rights and executive director of the undocumented migration project Robin Reineke, Assistant Research Social Scientist at the University of Arizona’s Southwest Center. Mirza Monterosso, Director of the DNA/missing migrant project at the Colibrí center for human rights, as Enrique Gomez Montiel, Deputy consul of the Consulate of Mexico in Tucson Greg Hess, Forensic pathologist and chief Medical examiner of the PCOME.