SUNLAND PARK, N.M. — In each of the last two summers, Laura Mae Williams, who recovers bodies for the New Mexico Medical Investigator’s Office, has had to visit the U.S.-Mexico borderlands multiple times a week.
“It’s not uncommon for me to come down for one body that’s been found, and then Border Patrol finds another one or maybe even two additional ones in different locations,” Williams said.
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’s 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’s record of 116. It’s more than a thirteenfold increase from five years ago…