When I moved to El Paso in 2016, there were fewer than 10 migrant deaths in what U.S. immigration officials call the El Paso Sector, an area that runs from Hudspeth County to the Arizona state line. By fiscal year 2023, that number had skyrocketed to 136—a record. Last fiscal year, which ended on October 1, 2024, there were 176.
No one will take responsibility for these deaths. Not U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Surely not my local Sheriff Kim Stewart, whose office refuses to respond to reports of dead migrants. “I have crimes that need investigation where I know there are victims,” she told KTSM in November. “So I kind of have to choose how I prioritize some of this, don’t I?”
She assumes there are no crime victims among these dead. To admit otherwise might call into question U.S. immigration policy.
Beginning in 1993, then-President Bill Clinton oversaw the laying of the groundwork for today’s border policy with Operation Hold the Line by stationing clusters of agents along the banks of the Rio Grande in El Paso. This strategy, known as prevention through deterrence, creates barriers for migrants attempting to cross the border in urban areas and funnels them into harsher terrain. It’s also deadly.
In 2021, Texas Governor Greg Abbott launched Operation Lone Star, an $11 billion program to deter migrants and asylum-seekers from entering Texas. By 2024, state police and National Guard members patrolled land south of the border wall and north of the Rio Grande in El Paso, laying hundreds of miles of concertina wire. Some migrants set up camps in this no-man’s-land and lived in makeshift tents until they could cut holes in the wire and run to where they could make asylum claims.
Last March, hundreds of migrants broke through and rushed the wall. In retaliation, police and National Guard troops began shooting pepper balls at them. Then they brought out sound cannons to drive away those still sleeping along the river bank.
Many migrants began trying to cross into New Mexico, where there were no troops or rows of concertina wire, but there was a harsh desert terrain. As temperatures rose, reported deaths increased.
On outings, I began accompanying Abbey Carpenter and James Holeman of Battalion Search and Rescue. Most days, we found only discarded personal items: empty water bottles and foam pads used to hide footprints. Other days, we found signs of death: stray bones, including the occasional skull.
On my first trip, I asked how I would know what a human bone looks like. They told me I would know. On the second day, I found a femur. After four months, I learned to spot chalky white remains from 50 to 100 feet away.
Abbey Carpenter with Battalion Search and Rescue searches for injured or deceased migrants in the desert outside of El Paso in June. (Justin Hamel)
Crystal Sandoval, Diana Nevarez Ramirez, and James Holeman search for remains in the desert. (Justin Hamel)
(Left) Holeman holds a slashed jug of water he previously left behind for migrants in the desert. (Right) Holeman holds up a list of bible verses, phone numbers, and a child’s drawing he found in the desert. (Justin Hamel)
The desert outside of Santa Teresa, New Mexico, in July (Justin Hamel)
(Left) A flare from a natural gas plant adjacent to where a migrant died in April, a half-mile north of the border (Right) What appears to be a human skull discovered by Carpenter and Holeman of Batallion Search and Rescue in August (Justin Hamel)
Holeman and Carpenter’s group left a rosary at a site where migrant remains were found. (Justin Hamel)
Carpenter stands near the border wall in October. (Justin Hamel)
The location where a migrant man died of heat exhaustion in May. He was 1,028 feet from the closest house in Sunland Park, New Mexico. (Justin Hamel)
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