Suchergebnisse

Due to the diverse demographics within the United States, ancestry estimation in the biological profile created by forensic anthropologists is helpful in facilitating a positive identification, narrowing down the parameters when searching through missing persons databases. The U.S.–Mexico border has seen an increase in migrant fatalities during the year 2012. In particular, Brooks County, Texas, has seen a dramatic increase in migrant remains. Until recently, the remains in Brooks County have been buried as unidentified individuals with no forensic pathological or anthropological analyses. Collaborative efforts by Baylor University, University of Indianapolis, and Texas State University are underway to exhume and analyze these individuals and work toward positive identification. Using the term Hispanic to describe these remains is of little use as individuals in Latin America do not refer to themselves as Hispanic and it is not informative to the geographic origins of these individuals. Because different countries that comprise Latin America have different population histories that have led to different population structures, it may be possible to use craniometric data to more precisely estimate the geographic origin of migrant fatalities found along the U.S.–Mexico border. Preliminary results suggest that, with larger data sets, it is possible to take a finer‐grained approach to estimating geographic origin to facilitate a more rapid positive identification and repatriation.

AbstractHigh rates of migrant fatalities at the U.S. southern border represent an ongoing mass disaster that is the product of Prevention through Deterrence policies funneling migrants into remote and deadly terrain. Due to a fragmented, underresourced, and overwhelmed medicolegal system in South Texas, the majority of unidentified migrant decedents recovered in the region are buried without proper investigation or genetic sampling. The present study examines the effects that South Texas burial practices have on the ability to recover and identify deceased migrant individuals, in addition to assessing the care and respect with which their remains are treated. Utilizing forensic archaeological and case records data pertaining to 103 burials of unidentified migrant decedents exhumed by Operation Identification at Texas State University across three South Texas counties, the present study reveals problematic patterns with migrant death management practices and generates preliminary recommendations for burial improvement.

The state of Florida is commonly ignored as a border state when it comes to issues and challenges in migrant death investigations. In the 2010 U.S. Census, Florida held the third largest Hispanic population in the United States, with almost 19 million individuals self‐identifying as Hispanic, following behind California and Texas (Ennis et al. ). Undocumented workers that arrive in the United States frequently migrate to Florida for labor, such as on produce farms, and many of these workers are children, traveling alone, or under circumstances that make them an at‐risk group. Endangered, missing, and unidentified persons in Florida are growing problems, with significant numbers of affected persons from the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America. This research explores the variation among six diverse groups that are found in Florida and throughout the United States, especially along the border. These groups include four groups considered Hispanic (Mexico, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, and Cuba), as well as American white and black. Based on canonical discriminant function and Mahalanobis distance (D2) analyses, the Mexican and Guatemalan samples are the two most similar groups when comparing only the four groups considered Hispanic (D2 = 2.581) and among all six groups (D2 = 2.645). Within the four groups considered Hispanic, the Puerto Rican and Cuban samples are the second most similar groups (D2 = 4.690). However, when comparing all six groups, the Cuban and American black samples are the second most similar groups (D2 = 3.289). These results reflect a shift in similarities in cranial morphology when including the American black and white samples. By improving our understanding of the historical and current biological relationships among diverse groups living in close proximity, forensic anthropologists can better utilize ancestry data into their biological profiles for human identification.