Arizona Migrant Deaths Could Hit 'Unprecedented' Highs

A chief Arizona Border Patrol agent is warning that sweltering temperatures in the Southwest could lead to an "unprecedented" number of deaths in the weeks and months ahead.

Arizona, like Texas and California, continues to combat an influx of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. There were 576,901 attempted migrant crossings in Arizona in fiscal year 2023, with current levels (348,013 encounters as of February) on pace to exceed that number by the end of the fiscal year in October, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data.

Last month, amid fears of the state being unable on its own to subsidize and house more than 130,000 legally processed asylum seekers released by the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector into Cochise, Santa Cruz and Pima counties since September 1, 2023, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs requested the Senate and House Appropriations committees to provide $752 million toward paying for migrant services and shelters.

"If nothing changes with the level of migration and we get the 118- to 120-degree days down there, we're likely going to see unprecedented amounts of death in the desert," John Modlin, chief patrol agent of the U.S. Border Patrol's Tucson Sector, said Tuesday, according to NewsNation's Ali Bradley. "At some point, something has to give."

Newsweek reached out to the Tucson Sector via email and phone for comment.

The Tucson Sector covers most of the state, extending from the New Mexico state line to the line of Yuma County. Covering some 262 border miles, it's one of the busiest national sectors in terms of illegal migrant apprehensions and marijuana seizures. Modlin has roughly 3,700 agents working at nine stations.

Last week, according to Modlin, the sector made 6,600 apprehensions, intervened in 14 human smuggling cases and facilitated 179 federal criminal cases.

"The sheer volume of people crossing here magnifies these risks; it puts every life at more peril than ever before," Modlin added. "From every single adult trying to evade our agents, to infants being carried by their families into this unforgiving environment of sun, heat and other desert extremes."

CBP rescue and mortality data from fiscal year 2022, the most recent year for such statistics, shows 171 border deaths—including 52 in-custody deaths, 68 reportable CBP-involved deaths that were not in-custody, and 51 additional deaths.

A 2021 report of migrant deaths between 1990 and 2020, compiled by the University of Arizona's Binational Migration Institute (BMI) in collaboration with the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, said that the remains of at least 3,356 undocumented border crossers were recovered in southern Arizona, with the majority found since 2005.

While numbers peaked post-2010, they increased again from 124 in 2019 to 209 in 2020—the second-highest number on record. Researchers attributed the uptick in the terrain migrants go through to enter the U.S.

"Though fewer migrants are crossing, they continue to die in large numbers and are perishing in some of the most treacherous and rugged terrain within southern Ari­zona," said Daniel Martinez, co-director of the BMI. "The lethality of crossing through southern Arizona has generally increased over the past 20 years."

A study of desert-related migrant deaths published by the National Institutes of Health showed similar findings, noting how skeletonized bodies increased from 19 percent between 2001 and 2004 to 49.1 percent between 2017 and 2020. Exposure to the elements was described as the most common cause.

Last July, during the hottest year on record in southwest Arizona, heat exposure was identified as the cause of death in 22 of 42 undocumented migrants, according to Cronkite News.