What is a migrant death? An operational definition for a more accurate enumeration of migrant mortality along the US-Mexico border.

Over the last forty years an indeterminate number of persons, ranging from thousands to tens of thousands, have died along the US-Mexico border during migration, fleeing poverty, armed conflict, situations of violence, and disasters. An accurate accounting of migrant deaths along the southern US border is the first step toward an understanding of the extent and the contributing factors of these deaths. In this article, we describe a key aspect of our collaborative work aimed at developing a more representative account of migrant mortality along the southwestern US border: the determination of criteria for inclusion of specific forensic cases as "migrant." Our intention is not to propose a definition of "what is a migrant death" applicable to all contexts and situations but rather one specific to the US-Mexico border region. Our main impetus is to build and launch a web portal to track and map migrant deaths at the US-Mexico border. The criteria we have identified are based on an examination of death data collected by various agencies in the four border states (California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas) and at the federal level by the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs). They include a) context of human remains discovery; b) identification media/documentation; c) geographic setting; and d) personal effects. Taken together, these criteria will facilitate our determination, case by case, of the probability that human remains found along the United States side of the border may be from a person in the context of migration.

Alternative workflows for identifying transnational missing persons.

Mass migration and migrant death at the U.S. southern border highlight the disconnectedness of the systems for transnational decedent identifications. Death investigation cases in Texas face delays and barriers at all stages of an investigation. Additionally, fragmentation of DNA databases exacerbate challenges in comparing genetic samples from unidentified human remains (UHR) and families of the missing. We sought to pilot alternative workflows for processing UHR and family reference samples (FRS) for the identification of probable migrant decedents. Primarily using Rapid DNA, but also accredited non-CODIS DNA laboratories, the piloted approaches were conducted in parallel to existing medicolegal workflows under the relevant case jurisdictional guidance. Our data show that Rapid DNA is a valid path for anthropology laboratories to support identification hypotheses and that accredited non-CODIS forensic and genetic laboratories also can support families to identify remains, especially when families reside outside of the United States.