The Missing Migrants with Will Grant Our World

of migrants found in the desert and return them to their families for

burial. Be US`Mexico border. Every year,

thousands of migrants try to cross illegally into the US in search of a

better life. As US authorities tighten up border security, more and

more migrants are risking their lives by crossing through remote

desert regions. Many do not make it. In the past ten years, over 2000

unidentified bodies have ended up at this morgue in Arizona alone. I

think of it as the smell of death. It is the smell of our death. I will

grant and in this our world, I meet or remarkable woman who has

dedicated years of her life trying to identify the bodies of dead

migrants and return them to their families. `` Our World.

We need migrants preparing to make the illegal border crossing, despite

the dangers of a long track in searing temperatures.

Tucson, Arizona. Desert city just north of the border with Mexico, it

has a unique and growing problem. The Pima County morgue has seen a

huge increase in the number of bodies it has received over the past

decade. So much so that Tucson now has the third`highest number of

unidentified human remains in the United States, after New York and

Los Angeles. Many are now just delete all remains. Almost all were

migrants who have succumbed to heat, exhaustion, or dehydration in

the desert. Here we have the right shoulder blade, a piece of the right

clavicle. This is a probable male that was found in the desert in

2013, from last year. The colour of the burn is white. That is because

it has been on the surface of the desert and exposed to the sun. Also

the drying up from being exposed to the sun causes the bone to fracture.

If we look at this bone here, the left femur, we can see this fracture

running through that. This doctor has a pathologist tag the body as

John Doe or Django until the name is discovered. We have had 2300 main

since 2001, people we believe to be migrants. We have identified 65%. We

still had 800 ` 850 who are unidentified. If you contrast that

to other mass fatality events like a plane crash, the identification rate

usually goes up a lot but you then have a manifest of who should be on

the aircraft and you just have to determine who is who. We do not have

that here. Instead, the burden of identification has fallen upon Robin

Meineke and her small team across the corridor. She arrived here as an

anthropology student in 2006. I really came here to learn and I

basically did not realise that I was walking into a mass disaster setting

and saying, hey, can I study what you are doing and I was handed a

stack of work. From there, it has been an incredible honour to take

this on as my main job. Robin inherited a fledgeling programme

which has now expanded into a non`profit human rights

organisation. They painstakingly match missing `` missing person

dated with the frantic records of bodies found in the desert. It has

become a personal mission for Robin. I lost my father very suddenly and

unexpectedly. That changed everything. I could recognise that

the families were facing something that most people would not

understand. I bring that point `` from that point, I began to pull

myself into the work. That work is piling up. Each file represents a

body that the team is trying to identify. This is a case from 2006,

still unidentified. Sound June 20. We rely heavily on the frantic

anthropology report. There is some information in here that, one day,

if somebody comes forward looking for a family member, it made trigger

memory that there is information in here which could be linked to that?

Exactly. Some of the most poignant clues to identification other

possessions found with the bodies. `` are the. There are three cards

are there, thank on, Saint Benedict is, St Peter. A wooden rosary. Some

US dollars. Of course, they were hoping to be able to use them in

this country. It is quite pathetic little site, it is very simple,

humble, handful of possessions. I spend a lot of time looking at the

items. It is powerful. I know how powerful they can be for the

investigation and to the family. We think of them as sacred items but on

the other hand, you or I would not want to be defined by the things we

happen to be carrying our pocket, the day we happened to pass away.

Most of the bodies are found here, the Sonoran Desert. The hottest

desert in North America, the summer temperatures can reach 50 Celsius.

It is a vast area that stretches from the south`west of the US to the

Mexican coast. For migrants crossing illegally into the US, they need to

track for several days. If they get lost or injured or run out of

supplies, the result is often fatal. Once you are outside in this

wilderness, you begin to get a sense of the sheer number of factors you

would have to contend with, trying to cross it. It is the hit`out here.

The spiders and rattlesnakes we are told are raw round us, and of course

you would need enough food and water to get through. It does not surprise

me that a vast number of people run into trouble somewhere along the

line. The Mexican side of the border are

small groups of migrants, including women and young children, huddled in

makeshift shelters. They have often pay thousands of dollars to criminal

gangs to reach this point but the hardest part lies ahead. Here, they

must wait for their guides to lead them across the desert.

That this is where so many of the migrants' dreams end. In the

summer, unfortunately, when so many people are dying in the desert, this

would be completely. Oftentimes, we have to use an overflow cooler to

save the remains. This place has quite a smelter would. These people

have been preserved and capped so that somewhere along the line,

families could receive these remains and dignify them with burials?

Exactly. The smell is still hard to me. I think of it as the smell of

death, of bad debt. `` death. Illegal immigration is an immensely

sensitive political issue in the United States. An estimated 12

million people currently live in the US without the proper paperwork.

Around 8 million of those are from Mexico alone. Since the mid`19 90s,

consecutive US governments have poured billions of dollars into

border Security, a move popular with many voters. The fence erected by

the United States has been extended and strengthened. Critics say that

this is one of the main reason is that so many migrants are now dying.

The border in urban areas has become almost impenetrable and it is, they

say, has pushed migrants to cross the fence in less secure debt ``

desert regions. It was not a dangerous place for migrants until

the border policies and shifted. This office, there were an average

of 12 bodies found per year believed to be migrants before the year 2000.

From 2001, the average goes up to 165. So what changed their was a

massive influx border patrol and military infrastructure.

The US border patrol has one of the biggest budgets of any federal

agency. They had over 20,000 agents patrolling the Mexican border and

are equipped with the latest surveillance technology. Their

mission is simple. Our role is somewhat 1`dimensional in that the

only thing we do is stop people from coming through between point of

entry. It does not matter if you have a Visa or not, you have to

present yourself for inspection. The agency rejects suggestions that the

militarisation of the border has caused migrants' deaths. They argue

that the blame lies with Mexican organised crime. Unfortunately for

those crossing illegally, they are in the hands of criminal

organisations who have no regard for human life. They will do anything

they can to essentially extort these people and to get as much money as

they can offer these people. Women that are out in this environment are

facing being raped. Everyone who is out here is looking at death right

in the eye, whether at the hands of somebody who might rob them of the

worst against them or just being out in this hostile environment. There

is very little water. It is tough to survive out here even if you are

well`equipped which most of these people are not.

At night, most people try to cross. Not only migrant are they after.

Stopping the illegal drug trade is also part of their work. We

understand there is someone in this area who is believed to have been

trying to take marijuana across the border. The border patrol is trying

to chase down one of the 2`man team. `` patroller. Within the space of

barely two Alice, they have picked up a group of suspected drug

traffickers with them marijuana and separately, a group of would`be

migrants who had hopped over the fence and they pick them up almost

as soon as they hit United States soil `` hours. So far, it has been a

successful evening for them. It is the border patrol who also find most

of the migrant s' bodies. With the high number of deaths, there are

thousands in Mexico and Central America who have been affected. I

travelled south to Mexico to meet one of them. I am driving into an

area called Beautiful Village, although in many ways it is anything

but. We are going to meet the mother of a 19`year`old immigrant who lost

his life in the desert in Arizona. Carolyn Chan is a full`time mother

with a passion for songwriting and music. She runs a happy, chaotic

home full of children and grandchildren. One person is missing

from this scene, her son, Marco Antonio.

One day, in July 2012, he disappeared without saying goodbye.

Carolyna desperately began searching for him. Then she heard one of his

friends who left with him was back in town. She went to talk to him.

Marco had been with a group in the desert, but was left behind when he

could not keep up with them. Undeterred by this news, Carolina

continued her search, checking missing persons website, contacting

migrant shelters. Eventually, her determination led her here to the

team in Tucson. They added Marco's details to their database.

Initially, there was no match. But, six months after he disappeared,

Carolina received an e`mail. There was a potential new lead.

That e`mail contained a photo of a pair of trousers found on a body

that seemed to match information that Carolina had supplied. Shortly

before Marco crossed, his father had loaned him a pair of camouflage

pants for the journey. His father is a little bit bigger and so he

removed a button and adjusted the pants so that they could be a little

bit tighter for Marco. That was the key identifying feature for the

mother ? That is what convinced her. She insisted on DNA testing to prove

it was indeed Marco Antonio's body. Although Carolina and Robert have

never met, families such as Carolina's are often extremely

grateful for what Robin does. It breaks my heart how intensely they

would be suffering. When they are informed of a death, they feel

thankful `` Robyn. I can't imagine being thankful to the person who

told me that my father died. Here, a small, dusty Mexican border

town on the edge of the desert. It is thought to be where Marco Antonio

set out on his journey to the United States. As plenty of others do. The

whole town revolves around the legal border trade and dozens of shops

cater to migrant needs. Crossing the desert into the north is no small

undertaking and any would`be migrant would need certain key survival

things. Certainly a hat, to protect from the sun. Of course,

camouflage, to also hide you from the US border patrol. Some vital

first aid and toiletries and then, most extraordinarily, something I

have never seen before, carpet slippers. You slip fees over your

shoes and when you walk, he leaves no footprints in the sand. `` you

leave. Before setting off on the treacherous journey, many migrants

come to the church to ask the virgin of Guadeloupe eight, the patron

saint of Mexico for protection in the desert. Some would need more

than just that to make it to the United States. In our plan, waiting

a loan to be taken to the board itself, I found this 15`year`old

from Guatemala `` a van. He showed me what he was taking. A blanket and

carpet slippers to get through. Somehow, this collection of items

was supposed to get him across the desert. It is tragic and

heartbreaking. I have seen the part of Guatemala

where he is from and it is extremely, extremely poor. It is

very rural. It is a very tough life. Waiting in a hostel for homeowner to

cross is this woman. She broke her leg on her last attempt to enter the

US. That will not deter her. She spent many years in the United

States. Her children were born there and she is desperate to return.

Do you feel frightened about going through the desert and everything

involved with that? For Carolina, that journey has only

brought sadness to her family. She has written a song especially for

her son, Marco Antonio, called, I am going to ask God for five more

minutes. She has at least been able to give

her son a decent burial thanks to Robyn's efforts. Her advice to

others thinking of making the same journey, is blunt.

I think it is a beautiful desert. But, it is also a very tragic

landscape. White Robyn and her team have helped to return hundreds of

migrant bodies like Marco Antonio to their families `` Robyn. She is

determined that their work affects a wider change. The number one thing

is thinking a bout of the border more humanely . Human life needs to

be part of the discussion. Human lives can be spared if people

wanting to come and work did not have to walk through the desert ``

about. No matter what one thinks of the rights and wrongs of entering

the United States illegally, few would want to see so many deaths in

the process. The irresistible little of a better life sits just across

the border. For many, the temptation will be to great `` lure. `` too

great. Hello. After a night with further

torrential downpours and gusty wind, hail and flashes of lightning,

the pattern will likely continue throughout the day on Saturday. We

begin on a warm note