Disappeared: How the US Border Enforcement Agencies are Fueling a Missing Persons Crisis - Introduction

The Disappeared report series is collaborative project between two Tucson-based organizations, La Coalición de Derechos Humanos and No More Deaths. Between Derechos Humanos’ 20 years of community work, including the 24-hour Missing Migrant Crisis Line, and No More Deaths’ 12 years of humanitarian aid in the Arizona backcountry, we have witnessed and listened to thousands of stories of border crossings throughout Southern Arizona. Our research goals are transformative: to expose and combat those US government policing tactics that cause the crisis of death and mass disappearance in the borderlands. In this introduction, meant for all three sections of the report, we explain this crisis of death and disapperance on the US-Mexico border and the policies that have created it. This serves to set the scene for the following reports which open a window to violent Border Patrol practices.