The Border Murders: Migrant Remains, the Loss of Identity, and the Application of Forensics at the U.S.-Mexico Border

Abstract

As the migrant crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border escalates, I seek to understand the importance of identity and how identity secures a place within the social collective. Further, I strive to stress how identity secures a physical and symbolic place in death so long as a person receives a “proper” death through culturally specific death and funeral rites. I have sought to frame the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border by exploring the symbolic representations and exclusionary politics behind the border that end up killing migrants in order to elucidate the liminal space unidentified migrant remains enter. As a result, unidentified migrant remains become lost, unable to find a place in death, and cannot be afforded expected funerary and death rites within society. To end, I discuss the use of forensic anthropology and archaeology as an aid in identification efforts of migrant remains so that a “proper” death may be achieved.