SUNLAND PARK, N.M. \u2014 In each of the last two summers, Laura Mae Williams, who recovers bodies for the New Mexico Medical Investigator\u2019s Office, has had to visit the U.S.-Mexico borderlands multiple times a week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It\u2019s not uncommon for me to come down for one body that\u2019s been found, and then Border Patrol finds another one or maybe even two additional ones in different locations,\u201d Williams said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It used to be rare for migrants to die after having crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in the desert just west of El Paso, Texas, over the state line. The Medical Investigator\u2019s Office, part of the University of New Mexico Health System, used to recover only a handful of bodies a year. But this year so far, the office has recovered 121 such sets of remains, breaking last year\u2019s record of 116. It\u2019s more than a thirteenfold increase from five years ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unlike the vast, remote deserts of Arizona, where migrants have died in significant numbers for years, the area experiencing this spike in deaths is relatively small, hemmed in by highways and the western exurbs of El Paso.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In many cases, people have died within a few yards of suburban subdivisions and paved roads. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most of the deaths are heat-related. Although it is a relatively small stretch of desert, it routinely reaches temperatures well into the triple digits in summer, with sand temperatures at times reaching 150 degrees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn those extreme conditions, even if you\u2019re well-hydrated and well-fed, it\u2019s going to wear on the body,\u201d Williams said. And in many cases, people who have migrated are not well-hydrated or well-fed, having spent days in smugglers\u2019 safe houses in poor conditions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
First responders, elected officials and advocates in New Mexico attribute the spike in deaths largely to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott\u2019s Operation Lone Star, which hardened the border in El Paso\u2019s urban core and prompted smugglers to attempt routes west of the city in New Mexico. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Abbott\u2019s press secretary, Andrew Mahaleris, blamed the deaths on the federal government. \u201cOperation Lone Star helps deter illegal crossings, redirecting migrants to use one of the 29 international bridges on the Texas-Mexico border where they can safely and legally cross,\u201d Mahaleris told NBC News in a statement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The deaths fit a historical pattern. Migrants often begin dying in greater numbers after enforcement efforts push smuggling routes outside urban areas and into more remote and dangerous crossings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Officials, including the New Mexico Medical Investigator\u2019s Office, also blame smugglers for the deaths, noting that in many cases they abandon people who fall behind \u2014 but only after they take their phones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt raises an important question,\u201d said Dr. Heather Jarrell, the chief medical examiner at the Medical Investigator\u2019s Office, whose office marks the deaths as accidental. \u201cIf you leave a person in the middle of the desert to die, why is this not homicide by neglect?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n