Amerika Garcia Grewal has lived in Eagle Pass, Texas, all her life. She volunteers for Operation Identification, an initiative that aims to identify the bodies of migrants found along the border between the United States and Mexico.
Notifying loved ones back home and, if feasible, repatriating the remains are the goals.
As she described her job, which involves taking off clothes to check for any identifying markers, such as tattoos, Grewal stated, “The body keeps the score.”
In 2013, Texas State University established Operation ID, which uses volunteers and students to help border counties that are facing a backlog of bodies.
The remains of migrants who may drown in the Rio Grande or die from exposure are frequently interred in county cemeteries, or in Maverick County’s instance, occasionally kept in a mobile morgue. During the pandemic, the refrigerated trailer was initially utilized to house the excess number of COVID-19 victims.
Because the remains may be in different stages of decomposition when they are discovered, the process necessitates specific forensic analysis expertise. Every body is meticulously inspected and recorded. Photographs are taken of scars, tattoos, and other distinguishing features. Both bone samples and fingerprints are collected for DNA analysis. Personal belongings like backpacks, clothes, and jewelry are also noted as hints as to the identity or origin of the individual.
It’s really personal. It’s really heartwarming. According to Grewal, there is a hope that this necklace, this sense of belonging, will help us link this person with their loved ones.
Courtney Coffey Siegert, a postdoctoral scholar at Texas State University and an Operation ID team leader overseeing the field work, said the study is ongoing.
It’s concerning that we’ve observed an increase in fatalities in many places that have never seen this before, she said.
In addition to having limited space to hold the remains, only two Texas border counties—out of the more than 1200 miles along the state’s border—have medical examiners on staff to conduct death investigations.
According to Siegert, there are currently too many fatalities and insufficient forensic services in the area to adequately handle this magnitude of a mass catastrophe.
By preparing civilian volunteers and other county authorities, such as justices of the peace, to perform the forensic work, Operation ID helps close that gap.
Judge Ramsey English Cant of Maverick County stated, “I believe that we would have been in a situation where we would have truly been at a greater emergency if it hadn’t been for Operation ID.”
The community is concerned about whether President-elect Donald Trump’s threats of mass deportations and future immigration restrictions will encourage more migrants to attempt to cross the U.S. border before he takes office, according to Operation ID coordinators and volunteers, even though the number of illegal border crossing attempts has decreased to its lowest level since President Joe Biden took office as of September.
In the more than 600 cases Operation ID has taken on, it has made almost 200 identifications. The project receives funding from grants provided by the Justice Department, while each county can pay for the services with funding from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott s Operation Lone Star, known for sending Texas National Guard troops to secure the southern border.
Back at Operation ID s lab in San Marcos, still unidentified remains are processed to remove any soft tissue and scrubbed clean down to the bone. The skeletal remains are then examined for even more forensic clues such as past medical procedures or dental work that could provide additional information. Photos of personal effects are catalogued online through the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System orNamUs. Families can search the site to see if they recognize any belongings. Finally, everything is placed in a box and labeled with an identification number. Siegert says the cases are often revisited.
We re actively searching out ways to reinvigorate some of the older cases that we ve had where DNA has been submitted to all of the places it s been analyzed, and we still have no hit. That doesn t mean that there s not family out there still looking for answers. So we keep working.
The work constantly goes on in hopes of turning those identification numbers into names. Grewal adding, We re doing it for the living. We re doing it so you know, the families that don t have closure, that don t know what s happened to their brother, their sister, their mother, their father, that they know where they are and that somebody cared about them.
Note: Every piece of content is rigorously reviewed by our team of experienced writers and editors to ensure its accuracy. Our writers use credible sources and adhere to strict fact-checking protocols to verify all claims and data before publication. If an error is identified, we promptly correct it and strive for transparency in all updates, feel free to reach out to us via email. We appreciate your trust and support!