Disappeared: How the US Border Enforcement Agencies are Fueling a Missing Persons Crisis. Part 3 - Factsheet: Border Patrol Obstructs Family and Humanitarian Search and Rescue Efforts

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 factsheet, la Coalición de Derechos Humanos and No More Deaths explains that, in the absence of adequate government search and rescue (SAR), families and humanitarian groups are often forced to take on the monumental task of searching for the disappeared themselves. Border Patrol frequently interferes with and criminalizes these efforts.