As Migration Routes Shift Toward New Mexico, so does Death
High Country News, 21 December 2023
“Though just a few miles — or less — lie between the border and the roads where migrants can be picked up, the terrain is rough. Its openness is disorienting, the sandy soil is hard to walk through, and the topography varies. Those who want to avoid the border wall must traverse Mount Cristo Rey, where there is a gap. ‘I didn’t understand why they were dying until I started going out there on the (ATV) — I was getting lost,’ said García, who has lived in Sunland Park his whole life.
Others die after falling from the wall, or from a combination of injuries and exposure. CT scans conducted by OMI reveal fibula and foot fractures in remains recovered from within a mile of the wall.
‘Maybe the dehydration is survivable. Maybe the lack of food is survivable. Maybe the broken ankle is survivable,’ said Heather Edgar, OMI’s forensic anthropologist. ‘But when you put them all together and you're disoriented and you're lost. … It’s not survivable.’”
High Country News, 21 December 2023
“Though just a few miles — or less — lie between the border and the roads where migrants can be picked up, the terrain is rough. Its openness is disorienting, the sandy soil is hard to walk through, and the topography varies. Those who want to avoid the border wall must traverse Mount Cristo Rey, where there is a gap. ‘I didn’t understand why they were dying until I started going out there on the (ATV) — I was getting lost,’ said García, who has lived in Sunland Park his whole life.
Others die after falling from the wall, or from a combination of injuries and exposure. CT scans conducted by OMI reveal fibula and foot fractures in remains recovered from within a mile of the wall.
‘Maybe the dehydration is survivable. Maybe the lack of food is survivable. Maybe the broken ankle is survivable,’ said Heather Edgar, OMI’s forensic anthropologist. ‘But when you put them all together and you're disoriented and you're lost. … It’s not survivable.’”
Paul Ratje/AFP via Getty Images
Caroline Eaton Tracey writes about the environment, migration, and the arts in the US Southwest, Mexico, and their borderlands. She speaks and works in English, Spanish, and Russian. Her first book, SALT LAKES, will be published by W.W. Norton.
Caroline’s reporting appears in the New Yorker, n+1, New York Review of Books, High Country News, and elsewhere, as well as in Spanish in Mexico’s Nexos.
In 2022 she was awarded the Waterston Prize for Desert Writing and in 2023 she received Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Fellowship in Journalism and Human and Civil Rights and a Silvers Foundation Work-in-Progress grant.
Caroline holds a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives with her wife, Mexican architect and sculptor Mariana GJP, between Tucson, Arizona and Mexico City.
She is represented by Bridget Matzie of Aevitas Creative Management.
Caroline’s reporting appears in the New Yorker, n+1, New York Review of Books, High Country News, and elsewhere, as well as in Spanish in Mexico’s Nexos.
In 2022 she was awarded the Waterston Prize for Desert Writing and in 2023 she received Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Fellowship in Journalism and Human and Civil Rights and a Silvers Foundation Work-in-Progress grant.
Caroline holds a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives with her wife, Mexican architect and sculptor Mariana GJP, between Tucson, Arizona and Mexico City.
She is represented by Bridget Matzie of Aevitas Creative Management.
Caroline Eaton Tracey escribe sobre el medioambiente, la migración, el arte y la literatura en México, el Suroeste de Estados Unidos y su frontera. Habla ingles, español y ruso. Su primer libro, SALT LAKES, será publicado bajo el sello de la editorial W.W. Norton.
Sus artículos aparecen en The New Yorker, n+1, New York Review of Books y High Country News entre otros lugares. En español escribe frecuentemente para la revista Nexos.
En 2022 ganó el Premio Waterston por Escritura del Desierto y en 2023 recibió la beca Ira A. Lipman de periodismo de derechos humanos y civiles de Columbia University y una beca de la Fundación Silvers.
Caroline es Doctora en Geografía de la Universidad de California–Berkeley. Vive con su esposa, la arquitecta y escultora mexicana Mariana GJP, entre Tucson, Arizona y la Ciudad de México.
La representa Bridget Matzie de la agencia literaria Aevitas Creative Management.
Sus artículos aparecen en The New Yorker, n+1, New York Review of Books y High Country News entre otros lugares. En español escribe frecuentemente para la revista Nexos.
En 2022 ganó el Premio Waterston por Escritura del Desierto y en 2023 recibió la beca Ira A. Lipman de periodismo de derechos humanos y civiles de Columbia University y una beca de la Fundación Silvers.
Caroline es Doctora en Geografía de la Universidad de California–Berkeley. Vive con su esposa, la arquitecta y escultora mexicana Mariana GJP, entre Tucson, Arizona y la Ciudad de México.
La representa Bridget Matzie de la agencia literaria Aevitas Creative Management.