01x06 - Prevention Through Deterrence

[bunniefuu]

It's a male subject

of Hispanic descent.

He's got a lot of scratches right here

on his hands, probably from traveling.

Torn blue jeans knees, shoes.

Don't know.

Don't got him identified just yet.

Border Patrol Agents

is the one that found him.

Hi. How are you guys doing?

Were any of you three traveling

with the deceased?

- Were you with him under the tree?

- No.

Do you know who he was? Who was he?

- Do you know him?

- No.

- No?

- No.

Okay.

All right, well, we've recovered the body

of the deceased,

and we are headed out from where it was.

Hey, Larry,

you know that body

that you went to pick up?

In his clothes 'cause you know what?

We really didn't even pat him down

or anything.

We got information

that there was a zipper in his shoes.

In there,

there was a phone number to his dad,

to where he was gonna end up.

And we're needing

to find that phone number,

you know, to confirm if it's the same guy.

To confirm

if it's the same one we think it is. Yeah.

- It's a hidden compartment.

- Yeah, come along.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

Hello.

Hello.

My name is Mitchell Garcia.

I'm a deputy with the county sheriff

in the state of Texas.

- Uh-huh.

- We are looking for the father

of Rodolfo Perez.

Yeah, this is him.

- Sir, your name, please?

- Miguel Perez.

Sir, who is Rodolfo to you?

He is my son.

- Son.

- Okay.

- Okay, next question.

- Inform him what has happened.

Don Miguel,

I'm going to tell you what has happened.

- Yes.

- Your son

was coming to the US.

- He had been traveling

- With a group.

With a group

these last four or five days.

Yeah.

There was a snowfall. It snowed here.

They were climbing up a mountain.

They spent the night up there,

and it was cold, extremely cold.

Sir, I'm very sorry to inform you

that Rodolfo has died.

- Sir.

- Yes, sir.

What do we have to do to reclaim the body?

Are you in the United States legally?

Okay, I just got here to the substation.

It sounds like they've got a person

that they have located out here.

So I'm gonna need

an additional case number for that,

and apparently, they've got two more sets

of remains found on the Wildlife Refuge.

One, two, three, up. Okay.

So, you said he has a backpack with him.

Yes, this is the backpack.

I put a blanket in there, a shoe.

- Uh, he had the other shoe on.

- Mm-hmm.

He's missing a foot and a hand,

and then we picked up a bunch

of miscellaneous rib bones

that were in the area.

Okay.

Let me just take a picture of this guy.

These cases, for the most part,

are where most of the unidentifieds

are kept.

Folks who we believe are migrants

who have died out in the desert.

Our job is to identify these folks

no matter where they are from.

I think that we all feel compelled

to do the best that we can

to make sure that somebody out there

gets the closure they deserve.

One, by finding their loved one,

and two,

having their loved one identified,

and most importantly, returned to them.

Every red dot represents a person

who has been found in the desert out here

and been reported to the Pima County

Office of the Medical Examiner.

We were here in the town of Ajo.

So you say to yourself, you know,

"These remains were near Ajo as well,"

so if you kind of back out

and do the same thing,

you can see the town of Ajo,

but then you can kind of start to see

how many remains have been

in that same little vicinity

where we were at.

So if you back completely out,

you can see how many sets of remains

have been found over the years.

And unfortunately,

because we are the only county

on the southern border that does this,

it only maps for our general vicinity.

When you look at the sheer numbers,

I mean, it's something that most people

could never fathom.

No one wants to see people die

to get over here.

You gotta have a little empathy

for these people.

They just wanna make themselves

have a better life.

Who wouldn't? It's human nature.

The immigration system is backed up.

No one can wait ten years

to try to legally immigrate,

so it's just natural

where the criminal organizations

fill in that gap,

which is where we come in.

Border Patrol tends to detect and deter,

and then our job is disrupt

and dismantle

the organizations.

Well, everyone associates ICE

with the Enforcement and Removal Office.

No one talks

about Homeland Security Investigations,

HSI, which the criminal investigations

with the organizations

that are moving all these people

and contraband and money, g*ns,

all of it.

That's what we focus on.

Hey. How you doing, bro?

There's going to be five of them for sure?

No problem.

I'll call you later to confirm

that the guys are coming out tonight,

and then we can make arrangements

for tomorrow.

You're welcome. Talk later.

Hey, Al.

Did you guys copy that last call?

He three-wayed me with his boss in Mexico.

Um, yeah, yeah.

His boss was all about trying

to keep me happy.

So so, we may not

There probably won't be anything tonight,

which is good.

We're a definite go for tomorrow,

and when I get to the office,

we'll go over the logistics,

and we'll plan it from there, okay?

There are lots and lots

of human smuggling organizations operating

in the Southwest.

I was able to infiltrate

and become a name in the Rolodex,

and I am a US-based member of the Rolodex.

And what'll happen is

if I successfully infiltrate one

of the organizations,

they will share my name

or one of my alter egos

around with other smugglers,

who will then call me

to help facilitate the movement

of their people from the border

to any other part in the United States.

What I found

with human smuggling organizations

is if I just throw out

a cliche-ish name

There seems to be an abundance of Primos.

You know?

"Hey, do you work with Primo from Altar?"

Well, chances are there's

I happen to know for a fact

that there's more than one Primo in Altar.

Nine out of ten times, they'll say, "Yes."

And hopefully, they don't follow up on it.

Altar is the hotbed

for human smuggling in Mexico.

And it's the gateway to Phoenix, Arizona,

which is a predominant distribution hub

for narcotics and smuggled human beings.

The United States is beautiful.

I lived there 42 years.

To date, I've crossed the desert 11 times,

and I think this time will be the last.

I don't know,

but I think this is the last time

I'm going to cross the desert.

Because

if another five or six years pass

there will be no more legs.

- Enjoy your meals.

- Thanks.

I have lived

with immigrants since I was a child.

Thousands of people would arrive

to our town every day.

Migrants would arrive,

and they would decide how to cross

to the US

and with whom they would cross.

Things stopped working this way

when organized crime

took over all of this.

How much?

Because without this you can't pass.

For example,

if I wanted to cross with other people,

I looked for them and did it.

Now you can't.

They k*ll you.

Just like that.

In those cases life here is worthless.

The life of Sultano, Juan, Pedro,

Pancho is worthless.

My job is to take

people across the border to the US.

Things are different from before.

Right now, things are more difficult.

Understand?

Every day,

there are more walls at the border.

Every day, it becomes more difficult

since Border Patrol has increased

its presence and is more vigilant.

And that's why the cost is so high.

It's a minimum of $7,000 or $8,000

to get one person across.

And a lot of people decide to go

and follow through, and you know what?

They say, "I may take five or six years

to pay all of this, but I'm going."

I want to go to the US to work there."

And they do it.

All right, if you guys are trying

to reach me and I'm not answering,

it's 'cause I'm on the phone

with the bad guys, okay?

Once he confirms that the money is there,

uh

he's gonna send the bad guy away, okay?

He's gonna tell the bad guy

to call Carlos. Carlos.

Cover team,

be leery of counter-surveillance.

Have markings on. Cover up.

Don't be sitting in the parking lot

advertising that you're police.

I'll call the bandit first,

and then I'll wave you in.

What's up, bro?

All good, man. Look

just give me the $2,000,

and I'll release "the chickens,"

because I have a shitload of work.

I need to take care of all my other gigs.

I don't want to pay all that!

No problem.

It's okay, bro. I trust you.

Here's what we are going to do:

Send the guy here to pick them up,

and then we'll talk later.

I'm here at Food City

on 35th and Van Buren.

That's what you told me, right?

I'll be waiting here.

All right, all units,

spoke to bandit in Mexico.

They're trying to stall and delay

to get the paper ready.

I advised them

that they should come and meet

so we can discuss.

And it sounds like he's in a blue minivan,

or he might be in a small blue SUV. Copy.

10-4. We are standing by

right outside the target.

All units, all units, take 'em down.

Take 'em down. Take 'em down.

So, does he have the paper?

Two thousand US dollars.

Mexico is blowing up my phone.

It sounds like where he came from

might be a good location.

Okay.

This may be

where they're storing the bodies.

We're trying to get there

before they have a chance

to figure out something's up.

Eventually, a call's gonna come back

to this house,

and they're gonna say,

"Something's wrong."

Units, we're knocking at the front door.

We have no contact.

Straight?

- We're clear. All clear.

- Clear. All clear.

- Guys, how many we got?

- Six.

- Six.

- All right. Twelve total.

We found a lot of cell phones.

We found multiple items of documentation:

Social Security cards,

- identifications

- Mexican passports.

Cash.

If they're from some place

other than Mexico,

they get more, they charge more.

And they do a good job of documentation.

You can see the locations

that people had to go to.

These clothes here, a lot of them

are just drenched with sweat,

which is pretty common

when you arrest people.

And in this top drawer here,

you've got brand-new clothes

with the tags still on it.

So, presumably one of the benefits

you pay for when you have this service

is you get to leave your gross clothes,

and they outfit you nicely,

and then maybe they launder it later.

I'm not sure.

And then you emerge

on this side of the border a new man

ready to start your new life.

Do you have papers

to be here in the United States?

- No.

- Okay.

Everyone stay calm, okay?

Is this where they brought you?

Yes? This is where they brought you?

Have your guardians treated you well?

- Yes.

- Okay, very well. Stay calm.

It's gonna be okay.

This is a bizarre situation

because when you have human beings

being smuggled,

they're victims, to a certain degree.

They're evidence, to a certain degree.

They're witnesses. They're contraband.

It's like basically having, like, drugs

that come from Mexico,

but that have, you know, a story to tell

and rights and safety concerns

and dignity and everything else

that we have to walk

that knife edge, so

- Who's next?

- All right, one more.

- One more?

- Yep.

Is your foot okay, sir?

I can't walk.

You can't walk a little bit?

Nothing, a little bit.

These dudes are

from Oaxaca and Chiapas

is what I've heard so far.

Super far from the border.

If I were to talk to these guys

and get every detail of their story,

I'm sure that, if it were up to me,

I would say, "You know what, man?

You can just stay, dude. You seem cool."

But it's not up to me.

And you know, you feel bad,

so it's the nature of the beast.

Just give me a couple at a time.

They might lose a load,

but to them,

it's just the cost of doing business.

They'll get five across

to their one that we get.

It's all a cat and mouse game,

and they're good at it.

They may want to stop this,

but right now, it won't happen.

We always find a way

to get people into the United States.

Whatever they do,

this is not going to stop.

And even if they make

a 20-meter-high wall

we will always be able to work.

We're always behind the curve.

You know, it takes us a while

to catch on their new techniques.

They have a very good intel network, too.

They have guys that

their sole job is nothing

but to sit on a mountain

with a burrito

and a pair of binoculars

and a two-way radio,

and that's all they do.

Watch comings and goings

of the Border Patrol.

Look, for example, right now,

we have, like, five Immigration patrols

around here.

And even if we need to walk five

to ten hours more,

we will get in.

They got a group

of ten off 86 by mile marker 117.

Roger that.

You know, you're getting paid to go hunt,

and there's nothing more challenging

than hunting the human species.

Just sometimes

they're just a little bit smarter

than you sometimes.

They outsmart you,

but hey, that's what makes it so fun.

We shouldn't regard

Immigration officials as enemies.

They have a job, like us.

So, they make it harder for us to work

and we make it harder for them too.

I crossed with guys here

who worked for the mafia and were k*lled.

They are gone. They have disappeared.

They get into trouble,

accept propositions, and then it's over.

I got offered to carry a package.

And I said no.

I think my life costs more

than 10,000 pesos.

It costs more than that.

I've been staying here for five months.

I live here, outside.

And I leave at 4 a.m.

to work picking cucumbers.

I only want

to get together my 8,000, 10,000

and get out of here.

Oh.

I'm working hard,

waiting for my turn.

It's gonna come.

I don't know when, but it's gonna come.

Probably

I'm trying to be there before Christmas.

I want to see my daughters.

My two kids, my two daughters.

I'm not waiting for them to call me Dad

or Daddy or give me a hug.

I just want to see 'em from far away.

I just want to see their faces,

how they look like.

The desert isn't a game.

I got lost twice in the desert.

I looked up

and felt like I was passing out

and I kept walking and walking

with dry lips

without water.

Walking two days without water in the sun.

Immigration has many high-tech devices

to detect us.

Sensors, infrared.

They have dogs. They have motorcycles.

There are times when you are dying

because you fell,

and you twisted your foot and can't walk,

and they don't care.

They keep pushing you to walk

when you can't walk.

It's a game of life or death.

Somebody walked upwards of 35 miles

to get to this particular point,

and this was one of the few things

they were carrying with them

that was sort of life-sustaining.

And now, it's here.

A black water bottle.

These are only produced

in northern Mexico, only for migrants,

for people to carry with them

in the desert.

This, you know,

has a kind of personal touch to it.

Someone has taken part of a backpack

and fashioned it into a strap,

so they can carry it on their shoulder.

You can see them

in these knots and the ingenuity

that people come up with to survive

in this really

incredibly difficult terrain.

I began my career

as a very traditional archaeologist.

Strangely enough,

like every great human migration,

there's an archaeological fingerprint.

The more I have gotten into it,

the more complicated

the picture has become.

Part of that came out of knowing

that these bodies were coming

into the medical examiner's office

in bad shape and asking people to say,

"Well, how long does it take

for a body to deteriorate?

What's it look like

to die in a desert?"

I was asking those questions,

and nobody could give me

a straight answer.

Short of having a human body

in this context,

are there other ways

that we can use science to document this?

And forensic science

has a very long history

of using pigs as proxies

for the human body.

So, I was like, "Well, sh*t!

Why don't we just do this with pigs?"

I mean, do you want me

to find something to stick under it?

Um,

that's kind of good like that.

We took these animals, dressed them up,

gave them personal effects.

We set up these cameras,

and we we let 'em run.

We were shocked, you know.

In some instances,

you go from fully-fleshed

to skeletonized and disarticulated,

completely ripped apart, in 36 hours.

That's nuts! Holy crap!

They took off the sock.

Christ!

Just the speed at which folks

were disappearing was really striking.

You'd have personal effects

that'd just completely disappear.

You've got body parts

that are spread over hundreds of feet,

making it almost impossible

to connect the dots.

That was when we really started

to think about,

"Well, if we've got 3,000-plus bodies

in Arizona, that's just recovered.

Those numbers don't represent

the total number of people who have died."

And you can back that up by just looking

at the number of missing persons reports.

There are a lot of folks out there

who have died and will never be recovered.

They're just gone.

Can you hear me?

Walls cannot separate us.

I have come to talk

about my son Marco Antonio Ramirez,

who disappeared in the Arizona desert.

It has been five years

since he disappeared.

My son has a name.

He has a mother.

He has a family that loves him

and is waiting for his return!

For what demonic intention

are so many humans dying

because of a barrier?

Two years ago, a door opened for me.

Colibrí gave me hope.

They took my DNA.

I'm extremely grateful

because today I can say

that I have a better chance

of finding my son.

I love my son, and I want him home!

The Colibrí Center for Human Rights

is a very small nonprofit in Tucson.

We're a staff of five trying to take on

this huge human rights crisis

on the border.

We accompany families in their search

for their missing loved one,

and we partner with the Pima County Office

of the Medical Examiner

and their forensic scientist.

We offer a DNA service to the families

who are in search of answers

and in search of justice.

We take their DNA samples and compare it

to the more than 1,000 unidentified cases

that exist in southern Arizona.

Typically, we're asked to do age

or how long someone's been dead

or who they are.

And were they a man or a woman?

Were they tall or short?

And try to construct

what we call a biological profile.

I cut out

a section of bone off the shin bone,

and we could send that to a DNA lab.

It costs more money. It takes more time.

But if that's what it takes for a family

to get the answers they need

and move on with the grieving process,

then we do that.

According to the morgue,

this person was 30 to 45 years old.

Marco Antonio was 32.

And this photo is recent

This is what

Camerina sent the consulate. Mm-hmm.

She saw a shoe online

that looks like it might be her son's.

This was the first clue she saw.

She had this mother's instinct,

feeling it belonged to her son.

I remember my son

as someone who wanted to fight

to take care of his children, his wife.

We were so happy.

The whole family was happy.

Here you can see him

with his first girlfriend.

He was so in love.

Lifting weights

He made me laugh.

We laughed so much about these photos

together.

When he was about to return to Mexico,

he said, "Mom,

I'm going to give you all my pictures."

And I felt very happy.

He did the same thing

when he went to the desert.

On August 17th, he left Sonoyta

and crossed with two other boys.

Two or three weeks later,

the two other boys came back

and told me my son died in the desert.

- The family saw those shoes, huh?

- Yes.

We don't have a whole lot

to go on, though,

- do we?

- No.

They have some dental

information, but we don't have any

any skull or any teeth to compare that to.

His skeleton looks like, though,

he does have some degree

of Native American,

so that would be consistent with somebody

from Mexico or Central America.

Mm-hmm.

This picture is one of the last moments

we shared with him.

Did he really die?

Did they use him?

Did they k*ll him?

Or is he alive,

walking the border lost like a beggar?

My heart does not rest.

My mind does not rest,

and the uncertainty that I feel

pains me more and more every day.

Do they know where he crossed?

- Cerro de la Muela.

- Oh, Molar Mountain.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

That would be south of Ajo.

He's in the right place.

He's about the right age.

And they recognize the shoe and the shirt.

Yeah.

That's probably enough

to ask for a DNA exam.

And then in a month or two,

maybe we have an answer.

Okay.

Immigration's coming.

Go!

Wait for Immigration to pass,

and then they can go.

Small children just go under it.

We have to help our brothers.

I always bring two packages to give them.

We would like

to give them many more things,

but we cannot,

and they also can't carry much.

We give them painkillers

for when the cramps begin,

when the exhaustion hits,

and a hair comb to get thorns out.

This is very common.

And when they are about to cross,

this is going to be essential for them.

Have a good trip. God bless you.

God bless you.

Unfortunately,

those who take advantage of migration

do not see migrants as people

but as merchandise.

It is inhumane.

May God accompany those children.

From now until 4 a.m.,

we can have a lot of traffic.

You see it takes little

for someone to die for this dream.

But we can't do much

because we have a responsibility.

You are responsible

for the rest of the group.

And if you stick around

to help one person, you lose time.

What we do is leave the person.

We leave them close to the gap,

so that Immigration can rescue them.

There is no other solution,

and that's when they die.

Lordy!

We're definitely he's in odor here.

Lordy!

Let's go work him over here.

Here!

Lordy! Show me.

Nice.

That might be part of him.

Oh, yeah, that's it.

That's where he died.

The body was at.

I could smell it.

Oh, yeah.

So, he had a cell phone, electrolytes

a Bible.

- Hello.

- Hey, Justin, it's Kyle.

- What up?

- Yeah, the dog did well.

He found the spot and everything, but

yeah, the ME had already come out

and got him.

He was all rotted out already.

He's probably been there

for a week or two.

Yeah,

Yeah, we were figuring a week, man,

just looking at the

'cause the stench is still here.

And we worked a group over here,

like, a week ago,

and they all ran from us.

I wonder if he was part of that.

- Come here. Hey!

- Mm-hmm.

It's kind of like a little ball.

It travels over time, so

it could be quite a ways away

from the rest of the bones.

Hit what, 100 and?

I think today is supposed to be

up over 100,

- and then 108 by Wednesday, so

- Yeah.

- There's gonna be quite a few 911s.

- Mm-hmm.

911. What is your emergency?

I'm lost.

You're lost in the desert?

Look, I'm dying here in the desert

under the cactuses.

Okay, one moment

for Border Patrol.

I have a male

on the line who is lost in the desert.

All right, 10-4. And you said

Avra Valley Pump Station area?

That's correct.

That's what was given to us.

All right, 10-4.

I just come out here

for, you know, my 10, 12-hour shift.

Sometimes, a little bit longer, but

you get a little bit of the taste

of what they go through,

but they're in it for days, though.

See, I wear two hats as a paramedic

and a federal law enforcement officer.

We'll go from detecting illicit activity

and tracking it down, apprehending groups,

and then switch the hats then,

and it turns into a medical call,

because these people

that you were just tracking

have been walking for six days,

and they're in medical distress.

Knowing where that line crosses

from law enforcement mode

to paramedic mode

that's where we live.

- Hello.

- Hi. Is this Frank?

This is Agent Carey

with Border Patrol Search and Rescue.

- Yes, sir.

- You saw him

Was he on Avra Valley Road

when you saw him walking?

Yeah, it was Avra Valley.

Okay, I'm almost there.

I'm probably less than five minutes away.

- Okay, sir, hopefully you can find him.

- Yep.

He has a black T-shirt,

and he has something in his knees

and then the left leg. He needs help.

Okay, I'll help him out.

- I appreciate it, sir, very much.

- Thank you for the call.

Hopefully, still walking Avra Valley Road.

The guy gave him some some of his lunch.

There he is right there.

What's up, man?

I want to reach my family!

Okay, sit here.

You can tell

he's already been eating cactus and stuff.

He's in pretty rough shape.

What happened?

I want to find my family.

Where is your family from?

- Guatemala.

- Guatemala?

I'm from Guatemala.

What happened to your hand?

We were coming

to the United States, and

the guide that brought me abandoned me

in the desert.

It's okay. Relax.

You are going to be okay now.

Do you understand?

- What?

- You are going to be okay from now on.

It's all right.

Come and sit down over here.

Who's going to take me?

I'm going to Los Angeles.

Where am I right now? I don't know.

Tucson. This is Tucson.

- Tucson?

- Tucson.

Where is

And Los Angeles?

- Los Angeles?

- Yes.

Many, many miles.

In California.

Can you call my family? Please.

How many yes, yes, yes, but

- I've been three days

- You are dehydrated.

Sit down in my truck.

Thank you.

- Of course.

- God bless you.

You are welcome. This is my job.

I'm also a medic, understand?

Have a seat here.

- It's because I have a lot of thorns.

- A lot of thorns.

Where?

In your lips also.

And my knee.

The guide beat me up

and left me on the ground.

The guide?

- When?

- He left me without water.

- Oh.

- Without food.

When is the last time you had a drink?

Three days. Just now,

a driver gave me water on the road.

Yes, with the driver.

- Yes.

- Hmm.

Are you alone?

- There were five of us.

- Five?

I was left alone,

and another one died in the desert.

- He died?

- Died.

When?

On Thursday.

- On Thursday?

- Yes.

Drink this slowly.

Very slowly. It has electrolytes.

Do you understand?

Slowly, slowly.

He got a rash on his mouth?

No, he's been eating the fruit

- barrel cactus fruit, so he's got

- Yeah, it's all over his

little thorns all in his mouth.

- How old are you, 22?

- Twenty-two.

Do you have kids too?

Two kids. That's why I came here.

Because we don't have a house.

When my father died, we had to sell it.

How many days in total did you walk?

- It's been

- How many weeks?

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,

Thursday, Friday

Fifteen.

- Fifteen days?

- Fifteen.

When did you cross the border

of Mexico and the United States?

- Fifteen days?

- Fifteen days.

You okay?

Have you checked

in his mouth? It's just his lips?

He's got it on his tongue and stuff, too.

Okay?

Did he have a backpack or anything?

No.

- Okay, so this is it?

- Yep.

- Thanks for your help.

- Yep. Sorry I wasn't more help.

- That was good. Hooked up the IV.

- All I had to do was

I've never been out in this area before.

This is a fun area to work, man.

This is a real fun area.

Like, one of my favorite areas to work.

Once you answer up to it

and you get our guys in here,

it's awesome. Last time,

we worked a group of, like, five.

We pushed them from

I went up to the top there,

pushed them all the way down

and out to Marana, like 15 miles.

Three dogs it took us,

just leapfrogging, cutting them.

You guys wanna help that canine

push that group for a little bit?

Sure.

They already caught some people with it,

so he just thinks

there's more people around.

Look. It's incredibly difficult

to see 'em down below,

especially in some of this thick stuff.

They're hiding with the camouflage.

But the thing is

we're keeping them from moving as well.

Right?

So, those guys will stay hunkered down.

That gives the agents

that are on the motorcycles opportunity

to maybe discover their footprints

and kinda track

to where maybe they loaded up at.

See? There's two more down there.

These guys are swarming the area.

When the subjects are close

to getting apprehended,

they have these personal backpacks

that have clothes and food

and water in it

and when they fear

that they're about to be apprehended,

they abandon all that stuff

and start running. They don't have any

any thought

about trying to get back to it.

It's the furthest thing from their mind.

You know, they just made their journey

that much more difficult,

- because there's no way of knowing

- It could be a death sentence.

Where and when you're gonna get

your next food or water.

If I find them before the agents,

then I will wait until they get close

and try to cover their approach

with lower altitude, and

just overwhelm them with noise and sound.

It kind of expedites

and makes it a smoother apprehension.

Hello. Welcome.

How are you?

Come in.

This is the identification report.

This part shows the DNA of all of you:

- Mom, the sisters and his brother.

- Okay.

And here is the percentage.

- Yeah, 99. Uh-huh.

- 99.99%.

And does it say

the cause of death anywhere?

They assume folks get hurt due

to natural causes, like the environment.

Oh, okay, but they still haven't found all

of his body, correct?

- Yes.

- Okay.

- His skull?

- Yes.

It's not good news.

But I'm glad he's coming home.

I still hoped that he would arrive

and see the flower beds

in front of the house

and that he would be sitting in the chair

while I was out.

That's what I was hoping for.

And every day for five years,

I waited for him.

And every day,

I woke up at dawn to open the door

to see if he was there.

But now, it's no more.

All right.

Okay.

- Are you good?

- Yeah.

Let's do it.

So, we get maps every month

from the Medical Examiner's Office,

which just tell us

where people have been found to die

and when.

So, when we see a lot of deaths

in an area,

that's where we go and put out water.

We like to put water under a tree,

so we got a little more shelter

from sun and stuff

and plastic doesn't break down.

THERE ARE NO BORDERS IN OUR HEARTS

I think every year it's gotten harder.

Every year, the checkpoints have gotten

pushed further and further out.

We're probably about ten miles north

from the border,

but they're still probably only

about a third of their way on their trip,

and that's in a world

where everything goes well, goes right.

WITH LOVE

Most volunteers have probably found

someone's remains at this point, and

the journey just keeps getting harder

and longer,

and the enforcement tactics

keep getting crueler.

Make sure you get a good shot.

Picking up this trash somebody left

on the trail.

It's not yours, is it? All you gotta do

is tell me. Is it yours?

It's not yours.

You're not gonna tell me, huh?

January 2018,

No More Deaths published a report

that documented thousands of cases

of Border Patrol vandalism

of our water gallons.

This vandalism is part

of this larger system

of cruel enforcement practices

that cause death and disappearances

of migrants on the border.

I think that the lives

of undocumented people are worth less

and that they're under attack.

It's so hard to grapple with the idea

that in this desert

where people are dying of thirst,

the government is gonna decide

to crack down on the folks

who are putting water out on the trails.

Every political cycle, we pick

and choose kind of what to emphasize,

and I really wanna remind folks that,

"Hey, things are bad

under the Trump administration,

but they've been bad for a long time."

All Americans, not only

in the states most heavily affected,

but in every place in this country,

are rightly disturbed

by the large numbers

of ill*gal aliens entering our country.

The jobs they hold might otherwise be held

by citizens or legal immigrants.

The public service they use impose burdens

on our taxpayers.

That's why our administration

has moved aggressively

to secure our borders more

by hiring a record number

of new border guards,

by departing twice as many criminal aliens

as ever before.

It is wrong for a nation of immigrants

to permit the kind of abuse

of our immigration laws

we have seen in recent years,

and we must do more to stop it.

You've got all of these politicians

who are trying to feed

this anti-immigrant base,

and they say, "Well, look,

people don't wanna go into San Diego"

and see someone hop the fence.

That's like

Look how out-of-control our border is.

"So, if you can push those folks out

into the mountains, you know, great."

We recognize it doesn't stop people

from moving.

It just redirects them.

It makes them less visible.

And the recognition is that,

if we force them to hike 50 miles

across the Arizona desert,

they will be slowed down,

they will be easy to catch,

and they're gonna be on death's door.

And then officially, it gets launched

in '94 with the Strategic Plan,

also known

as "prevention through deterrence."

And there are policy documents

where they're trying to evaluate

the efficacy of this program.

And the one that has always stuck with me

is this table in the back

of a Border Patrol document that says,

"Ways of measuring the effectiveness

of prevention through deterrence."

And one of the metrics they have is a rise

in migrant deaths.

If we do this, deaths may increase

because we're gonna force people

into this hostile terrain

where they will risk life and limb.

We thought if enough people died,

they would stop coming,

but clearly, that has not been the case.

So, that kind of picked up

right around the time

that we crashed the Mexican economy

with NAFTA.

So, you've got hundreds of thousands,

millions of people leaving Mexico

and now being funneled out

into places like Arizona.

It's easy to get into Arizona from Mexico.

It's hard to get out of the southern mile

or five or ten miles.

In the '80s, we didn't average

15 or 20 deaths a year.

In 2000 and we had 75 deaths,

we thought, "Well, that's a jump up."

And then the next year, we had 150.

And then 9/11 happens.

Politicians start conflating terrorism

with undocumented migration.

We have a responsibility

to enforce our laws.

We have a responsibility

to secure our borders.

"We don't want another 9/11,

so we need to throw billions of dollars

at this industrial complex

to militarize the border."

And the American public buys it.

Joe the Plumber in Ohio,

he doesn't know sh*t from Shinola

about southern Arizona.

It just starts ramping up.

So, we're gonna start throwing money

at this issue.

We put more trucks and sensors,

thousands of Border Patrol agents

and just more infrastructure.

Checkpoints act as a funnel,

and they'll basically push them out

into the mountains.

Once they get out here,

and they're literally physically beat

by the environment.

They had to go out further.

They're gonna have to work harder

to get across. It's not so easy no more.

So when you do that,

well, the rates go up.

It's all about making money.

They're capitalists, too.

The more vigilance there is,

or the harder it is to get across,

the price grows as well.

All we're doing is making more

money for the cartels

and for transnational gangs,

and the Border Patrol knows this.

The government accountability agencies

that have evaluated them know this.

I'm a scientist,

and so, for me, numbers are crucial.

And if you look at the numbers,

prevention through deterrence starts

in 1994 officially,

and you see a direct positive correlation

between the militarization of the border

and the numbers of deaths.

I mean, you went

from having under a hundred deaths a year

to now hundreds of deaths

in Arizona alone.

To say that the government knew

ahead of time

that if they did X, Y and Z,

an outcome of that

would be increased deaths,

that's not the same

as actively k*lling those people.

If we wanted to do what I think

there is a perception that we do,

which is, "Let's just make it really hard

to cross the border everywhere

but a death funnel.

Let's put them in a death funnel

and just let it sort it out.

Hey, you know what? Darwinism, man!"

But the reason that we don't do that

is because, believe it or not,

that's a by-product of the policy,

but it's not the stated agenda.

If that was our goal,

we could do that way easier

than what we are choosing to do now.

You couldn't go out there

and sh**t 3,000 migrants,

but 3,000-5,000 deaths

in Arizona can be explained as like,

"People put themselves in harm's way.

They did it to themselves.

"Nature's a b*tch," kind of thing.

People are dying,

and we knew they were gonna die.

They continue to die.

They're dying right now.

- Ready?

- Yeah.

Oh, thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

What an ugly day!

- That's how it feels.

- It's hard.

But ultimately, I'm happy

because we found him.

- Yes, yes, today is finally the day.

- Finally. Finally.

Yeah. So he can rest, and so can I,

and everyone, the whole family.

Do you have any questions?

Here are the promised remains

They're dying because

there's not a line to get into.

Probably 99% of them

wouldn't have been dead

if they could have stood in a line,

been vetted and came over here

and did an honest day's work

for an honest day's pay.

I can't tell you how exhausting it is,

day in and day out,

to be putting cuffs on people

that you honestly can't blame one iota

for what they did.

They didn't k*ll their wife.

They didn't set off a b*mb somewhere.

They didn't rob a bank.

Doing exactly what I would do

in their situation,

which is to try to come here.

I don't like that about my career,

but I still think it's important to do it,

and I put my personal feelings aside,

which, yeah,

maybe that's what every n*zi said, right?

That I put my feelings aside.

But I actually believe in the cause

of trying to enforce

some sort of sovereignty over our borders,

and no one's figured out a better way

to do it yet.

What is law enforcement?

A guy's driving down the road.

You see a speed limit sign.

It says 70 miles an hour.

You know odds are

there's not a cop on that road, right?

But most people follow the law.

Why is that?

Because there might be a cop on that road.

Fear of getting caught is a deterrent.

It's what underpins the whole totality

of our society.

That's what our system is built on.

We've been trying to deter our way out

of the migration issue for decades.

But what we clearly didn't learn

from in the '90s

is that deterrence

has not solved the problem.

It didn't solve it in the 2000s,

and it hasn't solved it this decade.

Because we're only looking at this

through a law enforcement lens.

Forget not learning from history

that deterrence doesn't work.

We're turning our back on ourselves

as a people,

who we are,

how the vast majority of us got here.

Most of the people

who come to the border and want to cross,

they got nothing,

and they risk everything.

Probably they sell their home,

sell their land,

leave their jobs,

you know, or leave their family.

But I think we're all the same.

Me, you, we all go to the same hole.

There are some who die in the desert.

So it goes.

This life is all a risk.

Do we necessarily want

to be arresting people?

You know, no.

No, we understand the concept

of coming here from another country

and being able to work and make a living

and, you know, have opportunity.

Do we maybe arrest other people

that are not all so bad?

Yeah, we do

because that's what our job entails.

That's what we're supposed to do.

I mean, I've been doing this for

gonna be 12 years.

I still do it. You know,

I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.

This is America? This is America?

And why should

I have to be treated like this?

There must be justice!

There should be justice.

Ma'am, take your shoes off.

Hello, babe.

It's Octavio.

Immigration.

I love you.

All right.

I love you, baby.

I love you. Yeah, I love you.

I love you.

That's it?