Category Archives: Human Rights, Migrant Death

Talking about the project itself

Team members search a field

Day 1: First day in the field

General, Human Rights, Migrant Death, Snapshots

I woke up this morning to the lights turning on in the hotel room instead of my alarm. Somehow, I think we all slept a little later than we expected, but after rotating around each other trying to brush our teeth and get into the bathroom, in no time we were all dressed and on time getting out of the door.

Jan 2025 Beyond Borders Team Members: Latham, Eriksen, Frankey, Lilly, Makenna & Chastidy
Beyond Borders 2025 Team From left to right: Dr Latham, Dr Eriksen, Frankey, Lilly, Makenna, Chastidy

After breakfast at the hotel, we made one last quick stop to the room to get our field bags, and water for the day, we realized just how well the fridge in our room worked as our water packs were just about frozen solid! With our semi-frozen water bladders out of the fridge, we had time to check the weather before hopping into the truck (74°F and a bit cloudy all day). Loading up for the drive, we split into two four wheel drive vehicles, and we were off to our first location.

At the gas station pumping gas in the truck
Don filling up the gas tank

I was in the truck with Deputy Don White and other team members were with Paramedic Ray Gregory. On our drive, Don told us stories of his previous experiences in South Texas and told us about the history of some of the ranches in the area, and the history of game hunting in South Texas. Don then made a comment about how he should have topped off his fuel tank… Time to stop for gas!

After arriving at our destination on one of the ranches in south Texas, we got ready to begin searching the area. We were looking for someone who was reported to have been left in an area of the ranch with two ponds, a windmill and under a tree in a field. We were searching in areas of the property based on that information of his last known whereabouts, but because the information was vague, we searched in different areas on the property where Don thought it might be best to look.

Collection of empty bottles and food cans under the trees
Collection of empty bottles and food cans under the trees

We conducted line searches in the long stretches of fields, and searched within tree lines and through thick foliage. In multiple areas we searched, there was a remnant mix of old and new items left, indicating a previous pathway. Don then noticed an active amount of vultures flying and landing overhead so we shifted our search towards them. While searching, we also found multiple sites indicating that people had been there recently. Many of these sites were in areas under the shade of trees and surrounded by thick brush and cacti, hiding them away. We found empty bottles and food cans that were not rusted, as well as a pair of abandoned boots and some other articles of clothing. But we did not find the missing person.

A shoe found under a tree in the field
A shoe found under a tree in the field

We encountered various wildlife including spiders and other insects as well as some javelina crossing our path from the truck. After lunch, Ray made sure all of us were still staying hydrated and were ready to continue our search. We got back in the trucks and moved to another area of the ranch to search. We conducted more line searches through the field. But again we did not find him. Don narrowed the search area to an eight mile stretch on this ranch, a large area impossible to search in one day. Uncertain coordinates and vague descriptions are not uncommon, and it shows some of the challenges faced in finding missing people in the Texas Borderlands. But we left knowing we had at least cleared the areas we searched today.

Late afternoon we started our drive back towards town. As I stared out the car window on our way back (with socks laying in my lap) I couldn’t stop thinking about how much walking and searching we had done, and how we searched such a small area compared to the vast amount of land just this one ranch had. Most of the landscape to the novice eye looks exactly the same. I know without the help from everyone on the Beyond Borders team, I would have gotten turned around in minutes. I could not imagine how overwhelming it would be to try to navigate out here alone, while being tired, hungry and thirsty. It’s only the first day, and we can’t wait to get back out tomorrow to continue our search.

Socks barking at cows we encountered
Socks barking at cows we encountered

On the drive back, we took a different route, and went through the checkpoint. We stoped for an amazing dinner at the Taqueria Jalisco, and we ended the night with a debriefing meeting where we discussed our progress from the day and assigned new daily roles for tomorrow.

Today, we successfully cleared two separate areas on the ranch as the start of our search. As a team, we feel good about our first day and are ready for whatever comes our way tomorrow!

Frankey

The Butterfly Effect

Human Rights, Migrant Death, Reflections

“It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly’s wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world”. The quote appears on the screen at the opening of the movie The Butterfly Effect. The premise of the movie is that everything that happens in this moment is an accumulation of everything that’s happened before it. This idea is not new and is rooted in Chaos Theory, a mathematical theory which states that small differences in initial conditions can yield widely diverging outcomes. It shows that what was once thought to be the randomness of a complex system is actually a system of interconnections, patterns and feedback loops.  Chaos Theory suggests that all of our actions, no matter how seemingly small, have consequences.

The south Texas brush
The South Texas brush

As someone who overthinks everything, Chaos Theory is quite a mental burden. Replaying every word I said to a jury wondering if I inadvertently biased them, hoping the foundations I have laid for my children send them in a trajectory that keeps them happy and safe, and always second guessing whether I’ve done enough to support my students or if my form of support is not the best approach.  You must be thinking that sounds incredibly egotistical and self-centered within the context of a prolonged mass disaster where people are dying daily.  That the last ten years I have emphasized this is not about me/us but about the conditions at the border, and that is true. What we’ve also seen over the last ten years is no real change in policies at the border that stop or slow the number of deaths. People are still dying in large numbers. The location may shift over time, but the situation is still dire.

South Texas vegetation
An example of the vegetation in South Texas

Our forensic work within the massive scale of need at the border is small. We make a big difference to the individuals and families we directly contact, but after over a decade of work we are not seeing a tsunami of change. Instead, we are always left with questions – Did we do enough? What if we just searched more in that direction? What if we stayed out just one more hour? What if we stayed just one more day? But I do see the tsunami building within the hearts and minds of our young people. There’s over thirty faculty and students from the University of Indianapolis alone that have traveled with the Beyond Borders Team to participate in this work. We also work with numerous other universities and students in the Texas Borderlands. They are experiencing this crisis with a lens and perspective that my generation just does not have. I am able to quiet the questions and the overthinking knowing this experience sets them a trajectory quite different then had they not experienced this.

Remote wildlands
A previous search and recovery operation showing the environemnt in South Texas

This trip will be different. We will be working solely with Remote Wildlands Search and Recovery on large scale search and recovery efforts in clandestine ranchlands. I am excited to see Deputy Don White, Paramedic Ray Gregory, and any other members that may be able to join us. They are wonderful humans that do great work! We lost Eddie Canales, the Director of the South Texas Human Rights Center and my friend to cancer a few months ago. I still expect to see his smile, hear his laugh, listen to all his new stories and get scolded for not improving my Spanish since the last trip. Eddie also contributed to that tsunami, and I know we will make him proud this trip. The South Texas Human Rights Center continues, and you can make a donation is his memory here.

Eddie (male) speaking with the UIndy team about water stations and supplies.
Eddie speaking with the UIndy team (Jan 2024) about the water station route and supplies.

~KEL

Documentary Poster for the Missing In Brooks County

In Their Shoes

Human Rights, Migrant Death, Reflections

It is about a week before the 2025 Beyond Borders Humanitarian Team’s mission to Brooks County, TX, as I write this. I am fortunate enough to have participated in last year’s mission. I have trekked through the heat and harsh vegetation, filled water barrels along frequent migrant routes, and helped recover individuals who fell during their journey. Nonetheless, the preparation for this trip remains as challenging as ever, both physically and mentally. Even now I am haunted by the potential atrocities we may encounter and what the future holds for migrants.

Since last year’s trip, I have done my best to advocate for and educate those around me about the human rights crisis at the southern border. It remains a silent issue despite sharing my personal experiences, providing links to this blog and additional resources, and inviting speakers to discuss the crisis. Brooks County is the site of a large mass disaster largely ignored and hidden in plain sight. After last year’s trip, I felt empowered by the purpose I found and the positive impact I made through search and recovery efforts. However, since returning, that sense of empowerment has been replaced by deep guilt and sadness.

I am not the first to say I am an extremely emotional person. I always have taken the experiences and emotions of others to heart making the written and oral stories I’ve read and heard so deeply disturbing and heartwrenching. It is neither fair nor just that such tragedies occur at the border. Ones in which no one should have to experience. This crisis is a matter of life and death—a stark and devastating reality at the U.S.-Mexico border.

In preparation for the upcoming trip, I decided to rewatch Missing in Brooks County, a 2021 documentary about the human rights crisis at the border. The film highlights the heartbreaking stories of individuals who have gone missing and the desperate efforts of their families to find them, aided by humanitarian groups like The South Texas Human Rights Center, Remote Wildlands Search and Recovery, Beyond Borders, Texas State, and others. Stories of people like Homero Roman Gomez and Juan Maceda Salazar.

At certain points in the documentary, you see conversations where family members send text messages to their loved ones crossing the border—desperate pleas asking where they are, if they are okay, and begging for a response just to know they are alive. The silence is deafening. It’s often said you cannot truly understand someone’s pain until you walk in their shoes. In 2022 I had a similar occurrence with my own family. I will never forget the overwhelming anxiety and terror I felt trying to reach them. I must have called more than a dozen times, left voicemails, and hundreds of messages. Inconsolable and completely in the dark, all I could do was think about every and any possible thing that could have happened. The anxiety making myself physically sick. The difference is that my situation was resolved after a couple of hours with my loved one being found alive and safe. Unfortunately, this is not the reality at the border. The harsh reality is that only a very small portion of missing migrants are ever found alive or dead.

Regardless of opinions or beliefs, the events at the border are not just numbers or statistics. They are real people—real mothers, real fathers, and real children with families who worry about them. I urge everyone reading this to imagine being in the shoes of a migrant’s family. Would you not want people doing their very best to locate your loved one?

I am fortunate to have been selected to join Beyond Borders in helping these families and ensuring that migrants are treated with the respect and dignity they deserve. I look forward to continue providing even the smallest change to the crisis and reuniting people to their families.

Please take some time and watch Missing In Brooks County to learn more about the crisis and work Beyond Borders works to do.

Chastidy