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“As crimes pile up, they become invisible.”

-Bertolt Brecht

Part 3:
Left to Die: Border Patrol, Search and Rescue, and the Crisis of Disappearance

This latest report focuses on a discriminatory and deadly emergency response system in the borderlands. We document how Border Patrol has inserted themselves as the sole responder for undocumented migrants in need of search and rescue, fails to respond to such emergencies, and obstructs family and humanitarian search and rescue efforts.

READ PART 3 NOW

​MORE OF OUR REPORTS

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Introduction:
A Crisis of Disappearance

In this introduction, meant for all three sections of the report, we explain this crisis of death and disappearance on the US-Mexico border and the policies that have created it.  This serves to set the scene for the following reports which open a window to violent Border Patrol practices.

Read the Introduction

​Part 1
​In this first report, "Deadly Apprehension Methods," we find that people who cross the border and are never seen again do not merely go missing, they are disappeared by the US border-enforcement system. Using surveys from Nogales and data from the Derechos Humanos Missing Migrant Crisis Line, we find that the Border Patrol routinely chases border crossers into remote terrain causing them to scatter, become lost, and often die or disappear.

Read Part 1

Part 2
This report details the intentional destruction of over 3,000 gallons of water left out for border crossers, implicating the US Border Patrol in the majority of this destruction. We document how Border Patrol agents engage in the widespread vandalism of gallons of water left for border crossers and routinely interfere with other humanitarian aid efforts in rugged and remote areas of the borderlands.

read part 2