Editor’s note: The complete audio version of this story is archived at KDNK.org
Driving toward El Paso, Texas, I see the border wall for the first time, its stark brown form extending endlessly parallel to Interstate 10.
Then, I see the colorful homes of Ciudad Juarez on the other side and I imagine how it would feel for someone to sit on those hills, staring across to the United States following an arduous journey to arrive this far. Crossing the U.S. border, however, is perhaps the most dangerous part yet.
Nearly one year ago, No More Deaths, a humanitarian group, released a database and map documenting migrant remains recovered on the U.S. side of the border with Mexico. Their data includes known border deaths from 2002 to April 2025, collected through public records requests to county medical examiners and investigators, coroners, sheriff’s offices, as well as Customs and Border Protection and other agencies.
“The death toll from 30 years of Prevention Through Deterrence border policy is staggering,” they write. Many more deaths are estimated where remains were never found. Of the 11,560 recorded deaths, a cluster of 321 is listed in Doña Ana County, New Mexico.
“This is the most active area that we’ve searched in like three years. This is where we’ve found the most,” James Holeman told me.
Holeman, a Marine Corps veteran, founded Battalion Search and Rescue in 2020. The nonprofit organizes volunteer search missions in remote areas of Arizona and New Mexico. Their mission is: “To save lives and provide closure for families and loved ones.”
The organization has located some 120 final resting places, contributing to the documentation of a humanitarian crisis along the southern border. And they’ve assisted many more people by providing water, directions or helping them to connect with emergency services. According to Holeman, the work is about remembrance, dignity and making sure that people who are “too often reduced to statistics are seen as human beings.”
In early June 2026, Battalion hosted its inaugural Not Forgotten Project, orchestrating a week of daily searches in Doña Ana County, where they had previously reported over 40 sites. For six consecutive days, between four and 10 volunteers swept up to six miles of desert, searching. I joined for the final two days.
“We know from a couple of different indicators that this, to our left and to our right, is a 100% busy migrant route,” Holeman announces over a two-way radio.
The group walks in a staggered line formation, each person within sight of the people on either side with Holeman and his partner in action and in life, Abbey Carpenter, guiding from the flanks. We swivel our gaze; checking left, checking right, looking behind, looking ahead.
Then, hiking through the sand in the late-morning sun, over and around swells of pokey palo verde and yucca plants, I spot some clothing beneath a bush. We had already encountered many discarded backpacks, sweaters, hats, even shoes, but something here feels different. I check around the bush and there rests a human jawbone, unmistakable, full of teeth.
“Ahh. This has braces,” mourns Carpenter. “There’s braces on this person.”
Nearby, we find rib bones, a humerus, scapula, pelvis, femurs — and a bra. I ask Abbey about next steps.
“We’re supposed to report to the law enforcement of the area. For us here it’s the Doña Ana County Sheriff,” she explains. “We have a form and it has what we found, the GPS point, how to get here, how many miles from different roads, my name, my email, my phone number.” The Sheriff’s Office then contacts the Office of the Medical Investigator. “Only they can handle remains; the sheriff, the deputy can’t touch this.”
Beside each bone, they tie a fluorescent pink ribbon. Later, at a gas station, they call it in.
The same day we find the jaw bone and other remains, a group of about two-dozen people stands with candles in vigil outside the Camp East Montana detention center on the other side of El Paso — rows of massive white tents at the Fort Bliss military base.
“It was built in August of last year and it’s supposed to house 5,000 people” Ana Reza informs me. She works for the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande and was one of several people to speak at the vigil.
Illuminated by candles, three crosses commemorate three men who perished at Camp East Montana. Victor Manuel Diaz, born in Nicaragua, was 36. Francisco Gaspar Cristóbal Andrés, a father of five, born in Guatemala, was 48 years old. And Geraldo Lunas Campos, father of four, born in Cuba, was 55. They all died in ICE custody.
“Francisco and his wife, they were from Florida,” Reza tells the group. “One day they were pulled over for a traffic stop and they were both detained. They were both brought to this camp, this detention center, this concentration camp. She was deported while he died here. She says, ‘I never got to see him again. I never got to hear his voice again.’”
During the hour-long vigil, two large buses with tinted windows pass by, presumably transporting more detainees into the camp. Everyone standing on the corner raises a hand high, communicating, “We see you.
We care. We’re trying.”
Battalion Search and Rescue’s Not Forgotten Project concluded with its own vigil on a bright Sunday morning. It was held close to where we searched, at the site of a cross marking the place of a migrant’s death — a 20-year-old woman from Guatemala.
“Today we gather to remember those who’ve sought safety and refuge and dignity and life across the borderlands,” Episcopal priest Sarah Guck orated. “We remember those whose names have been lost to the desert and to the river and to violence and exploitation and indifference. So we gather today in grief, in compassion and in hope.”
The compassion of these among many other groups, refusing to turn a blind eye to the suffering of others, gives me hope. On this 250th anniversary of our country, I choose to remember that this is and has always been a nation of immigrants. And everyone deserves a home, a place to feel safe and supported in order to realize our fullest potential and give back to our communities in ways big and small.