Category Archives: Human Rights, Migrant Death

Talking about the project itself

“We got lucky with this one…”

Human Rights, Migrant Death, Snapshots

“Here’s the spreadsheet that has all the details for this year’s missing persons reports.”

Dates of last known contact, what clothing they were likely wearing, whether there was any history of dental work or surgeries, and other possibly identifying information filled cells of the spreadsheet. There was a lot of data, but question marks and blank cells for missing data easily stood out.  I wasn’t really sure how to process the data. Where do you start? How do you start looking for connections?

“Oh no, these are just the reports from the Brooks County Sheriff’s Office. We’ll get to the other counties and all of the other reports sent to us from other states in a minute.”

Hailey Duecker giving a presentation infront of a powerpoint depicting the Texas US border

Hailey Duecker, the forensic anthropology fellow at the South Texas Human Rights Center, pulled up a current missing persons case she was working on to walk me through the process of search and rescue/recovery that begins with a phone call from family or friends of the missing. This particular report was written entirely in Spanish.

“We got lucky with this one. Two separate organizations have information about this missing person, and so we have a lot of photos and a lot more information than we normally have about someone.” Hailey showed me the photos and explained how she inputs this data into a public database called NamUs, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. “If we’re really lucky, we’ll have a few possible matches with unidentified persons found here in Texas.”

It seemed simple enough. A family calls in, reports a loved one as missing, gives as much information as possible, promises to submit a reference sample for DNA comparisons, and the South Texas Human Rights Center makes sure the data can be compared with other cases. But what I learned today was that this ‘simple’ process actually takes months and months of painstaking organization, persistence and patience to complete. Multiple human rights organizations strive to collect as much information as possible to find the missing, which in spirit is incredible. At this point however, as Hailey is able to quickly show me, these intentions often lead to decentralization. This means that multiple missing persons reports often exist for the same individual, often with conflicting information. And when one missing person is assigned a different case number by each organization or agency, these multiple numbers can easily get mixed up, creating a tangled web of useful information.

While this sounds like a problem, I see this as an opportunity to learn and become immersed in each individual case, and I think Hailey does too. As I spend this week learning as much as I can from Hailey before transitioning into her position, I’m realizing our job is a tedious one as we condense and clean an extremely large dataset into something more suitable for making comparisons. Even after only a single day of working with her, we started to fill in the blanks on a few cases, make a few comparisons, and equally if not more importantly, make some exclusions. I felt both a sense of relief and urgency with each blank cell on that spreadsheet that we filled in.

“I think we can exclude this set of remains as belonging to this missing person because the remains were found a few days before the date that he was last seen. That’s really good news, really good news.” Hailey spoke with excitement and passion every time she talked about getting one tiny step closer towards an identification. “Look further down this spreadsheet here, you can see how some of these missing persons turned out to be people who were deported. They’re alive, and that’s always the best news.”

Dr. Latham eyed us looking over the spreadsheet, probably because Hailey was flying through the explanations with excitement. She definitely sensed my head spinning.

“What do you think Ryan, you think you can handle it?”

I definitely think I can. Today was an eye opener for me that this week of training is going to be an emotionally exhaustive experience that throws me out of my comfort zone. But that’s what this trip is about, and I’ve never felt more ready for this job than after today.

Ryan

Day 2

Human Rights, Migrant Death, Reflections
Day 2
Day 2

Today we spent an emotional day near the border with Sister Pam of the South Texas Human Rights Center.  We spent the hour and a half drive to McAllen listening to Sister Pam tell stories of her work in Brooks County, and the triumphs and struggles she has encountered in her mission for human rights.  Our first stop in McAllen was the Home Depot where we purchased the supplies the make the flags for 25 new water stations.  After that we went to visit the wall.

Our visit to the wall was short. We were there for less than ten minutes before being chased away by Border Patrol officers.  But it was long enough for all of us to reflect on what the wall is and what the wall means.  Portions of it were towering and ominous while other areas were made of smaller chain link fence materials.

12My first thought when seeing the wall was that people died to make that line and people are dying to cross that line. The ones that made it are considered the war heroes that helped to define our nations lower extent. The ones who cross it are considered the criminals who break the law.

Yellow flowers growing over the border barrier attached to the border wall with Mexico visible in the backgroundAs you look along the fence the large steel bars stop and a simple chain link fence begins.  Wild flowers grow on either side with their roots in one country and their flowers blooming in another.  As I reached across the fence and picked a flower from Mexico I thought about the fluidity of that line for the flowers. They grow in the direction of the sun. They twist and stretch past the shade that blocks and oppresses them and stretch towards a place where they can get what they need to be healthy and thrive.

A hand with a red bracelet grabbing a pillar of the border wallAs I touched the bars I was thinking how this line has caused so much recent death. This is the reason so many bodies were (and still are) buried in Sacred Heart Burial Park, and so many bodies are being recovered from local ranches.

Sister Pam and Ryan standing infront of the border wallAfter the wall Sister Pam took us to the Sacred Heart Church where the Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley provide humanitarian services at the Humanitarian Respite Center.  We got to assist a refugee family as the arrived at the Center.  My family was a young mother and her two daughters ages 3 and 5.  I’ve never seen faces look so completed exhausted.  The children came into the center with sad and vacant stares.  We made sure to smile as much as we could, especially at the children.  After helping the family get basic personal hygiene items and a warm dinner, I got to help the family pick out a clean set of clothing.  The items were used but clean.  I was paired with a local high school student who volunteers at the center regularly.  We brought colorful outfits and glittery shoes over to the girls and watched their faces change.  They held the little shoes and looked at the sparkles, not even realizing the glitter had already been worn off the toes of the shoes by the last owner.   Seeing their eyes start to shine is a moment I will remember forever.  They are like the flowers blooming on the other side of the fence.  They are finding their sunshine.

~KEL

Training Day

Community, Human Rights, Migrant Death

Today was our first full day in Falfurrias.   Our first task was to give a lecture on forensic archeology to members from the Brooks County sheriff’s department, the local constables, and the justices of the peace.  Our goal was to help inform the local authorities what exactly a forensic anthropologist does, what tools and methods we use, and how we can best help them do their work.

Dr. Latham kicked off the show.  She explained what exactly a forensic archeologist does, which is use classic archeological techniques and apply them to a forensic scene (seems kind of obvious when I phrase it redundantly, right?).  We work slowly and systematically in order to document the context of a scene and we use small tools so that no remains are damaged in the process.  By the end we have systematically removed every piece of evidence from a scene, leaving it looking like a blank canvas.  She continued by explaining that this is how WE approach a crime scene.  We usually have the benefit of taking all day to process a scene, whereas the officers we worked with today rarely even have an hour.  The work that we normally do on a forensic case just isn’t feasible for these authorities given their time and resources… So how do we remedy that?

The answer isn’t simple, but part of the answer is to simplify.  Our work is reliant on attention to detail and proper documentation.  We suggested a number of ways that the officers might streamline their efforts while maintaining as much context and collecting as much evidence as possible.  One suggestion was to photograph every piece of evidence using a scale and a north arrow.  Another suggestion was to take a GPS coordinate of the remains every time.  While most of these suggestions might seem very small, they are incredibly important and a powerful way to document the original context of a scene.  Perhaps most importantly she finished by asking them what works best for them, what problems they face, and what we can do to help.  This dialog was an integral part of this course because the local authorities know far more about the challenges they will face on a daily basis and what it will take to overcome them.

Local authorities standing over the bone quiz, multiple bones laid out with numbers above them.
Local authorities mulling over the bone quiz.

We all did part of the lecture today.  I discussed how to identify human bone and lead the bone quiz.  Ryan and Amanda discussed proper mapping techniques.  Hailey Duecker from the South Texas Human Rights Center also gave an amazing presentation on the best practices that the officers should follow in the field.  Every person did wonderful at doing their part, but that’s the kicker… in the end every one of us plays a part.  Everything we do here in Texas is collaborative and we all rely on each other.  It is the cooperation that is truly astounding.

Justin and Amanda sitting in the judge and witness stand acting out the part!
You’re out of order!
(me judging Amanda after our lecture)

Justin