Hundreds of Immigrants Disappear a Year Trying to Cross the Border

On the night of April 4, 2007, Leticia Gonzalez, a native of El Salvador, was overjoyed when she received a phone call from her daughters, Luz Karina Campos, 12, and Blanca Lilian, 10. The girls were in Tampico, Mexico, and preparing for the last leg of their journey to join their mother in Los Angeles. She never imagined that this would be the last time she would hear their voices.

Gonzalez had been working to build a better life for her family in Southern California for eight years. When little Luz Karina was asked what she wanted for her birthday, she said all she wanted was to spend it with her mother. Gonzalez paid coyotes nearly $20,000 to assure the safe arrival of her children. But a week after the call, the girls had not arrived and she had received no further news. Fearing the worst, she turned to consular officials and community organizations for help.

From October 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008, a documented 256 immigrants have died on the border between the United States and Mexico. In the same time frame the U.S. Border Patrol reports having rescued 853 immigrants who were still alive, left behind to die in the desert by coyotes or brought in as missing persons.

Family members of immigrants are confronted with innumerable problems in finding information about loved ones who have disappeared. There is no system in place to track them since authorities do not currently have a database of immigrants reported as missing. Additionally, with the exception of Mexico, Latin American countries do not maintain resources to aid family members in their searches. Consular authorities receive reports of missing persons, but there is no established procedure for follow-up when a person vanishes on the way to the U.S.