The Undocumented is a 90-minute documentary film, released in 2013, directed by Marco Williams, which investigates the causes and effects of migrant deaths along the Arizona-Mexico border.
The Undocumented tells the stories of migrants who have died in the Arizona desert and follows them on their long journey home. The film is woven from multiple narrative threads. In Arizona, it depicts the efforts of the Pima County, Arizona Medical Examiner and the Mexican Consulate of Tucson, Arizona to name unidentified deceased border crossers, with the ultimate goal of returning them to their families. It also follows U.S. Border Patrol, Search, Trauma and Rescue (BOSTAR) agents, who must balance law enforcement with lifesaving. In Mexico, the film documents the reunification of the dead with their families and chronicles stories of loved ones who disappeared while crossing the border, never to be heard from again. [1]
According to US Border Patrol statistics, 417 undocumented border crossers died trying to enter the United States in fiscal year 2009, representing the first increase in four years. [2] The majority of migrant deaths occur in Arizona's Sonoran Desert, with 213 confirmed to have died in the Tucson sector alone in fiscal year 2009. [3] Researchers have attributed the preponderance of migrant deaths in Arizona to a so-called "funnel effect"; they argue that the militarization of the border has caused illegal immigrants to risk crossing through more remote sections of the Arizona desert, leading to a spike in Arizona's migrant deaths, which rose from 9 in 1990 to 201 in 2005. [4]
Principle filming of The Undocumented took place from June to December 2009. Post-production began in February 2010, with editor David Meneses and associate producer Thomas Peyton working alongside director Marco Williams.
The Undocumented was produced with support from ITVS, the Ford Foundation, and the Fledgling Fund. Produced for PBS, it aired in the USA on 6 April 2013. [5]
Brooks County is a county in Texas, United States, and Falfurrias is its county seat. Its population was 7,076, approximately 88% Latino per the 2020 census. It is one of Texas's poorest counties.
The United States Border Patrol (USBP) is a federal law enforcement agency under the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and is responsible for securing the borders of the United States. According to its website as of 2022, its mission is to "Protect the American people, safeguard our borders, and enhance the nation’s economic prosperity."
The United States border with Mexico is one of the world's "most lethal land borders". Hundreds of migrants die per year as they attempt to cross into the United States from Mexico illegally. The US Border Patrol reported 251 migrant deaths in the fiscal year 2015, which was lower than any year during the period 2000–2014, and reported 247 migrant deaths in fiscal year 2020, lower than any year since 1998. Poverty, gang violence, poor governance, etc. are the main factors as to why migrants cross the US border. US Border Patrol recorded 557 southwest border deaths during fiscal year 2021 and 748 in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2022, the most deaths ever recorded.
The Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range or Barry M. Goldwater Range (BMGR), formerly known as Luke Air Force Range, is a bombing range in the U.S. state of Arizona, between the Mexico–United States border and Interstate 8 straddling the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and the Tohono Oʼodham Nation.
The Mexico–United States border is an international border separating Mexico and the United States, extending from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the Gulf of Mexico in the east. The border traverses a variety of terrains, ranging from urban areas to deserts. It is the most frequently crossed border in the world with approximately 350 million documented crossings annually. Illegal crossing of the border to enter the United States has caused the Mexico–United States border crisis. It is one of two international borders that the United States has, the other being the northern Canada–United States border; Mexico has two other borders: with Belize and with Guatemala.
Arivaca is an unincorporated community in Pima County, Arizona, United States. It is located 11 miles (18 km) north of the Mexican border and 35 miles (56 km) northwest of the port of entry at Nogales. The European-American history of the area dates back at least to 1695, although the community was not founded until 1878. Arivaca has the ZIP code 85601. The 85601 ZIP Code Tabulation Area had a population of 909 at the 2000 census.
Illegal immigration, or unauthorized immigration, occurs when foreign nationals, known as aliens, violate US immigration laws by entering the United States unlawfully, or by lawfully entering but then remaining after the expiration of their visas, parole or temporary protected status.
Wetback: The Undocumented Documentary is a 2005 Canadian documentary film, funded by the Canada Council for the Arts and written and directed by Arturo Pérez Torres.
Marco Williams is a documentary filmmaker and professor of film production at Northwestern University. His films have received several awards, including the Gotham Documentary Achievement Award for Two Towns of Jasper, and he has been nominated three times for the Sundance Film Festival grand jury prize.
No More Deaths is an advocacy group based in Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona, United States. The group's stated goal is to end the series of fatalities of undocumented immigrants crossing the desert regions near the Mexico–United States border. Volunteers for the organization provide food, water, and medical aid to people crossing the US-Mexico border through the Arizona desert and offer humanitarian aid to people in Mexico who have been deported from the US.
Illegal entry is the act of foreign nationals arriving in or crossing the borders into a country in violation of its immigration law. Human smuggling is the practice of aiding people in crossing international borders for financial gain, often in large groups. Human smuggling is associated with human trafficking. A human smuggler will facilitate illegal entry into a country for a fee, but on arrival at their destination, the smuggled person is usually free. Trafficking involves physical force, fraud, or deception to obtain and transport people, usually for enslavement or forced prostitution.
Colloquially, a coyote is a person who smuggles immigrants across the Mexico–United States border. The word "coyote" is a loanword from Mexican Spanish that usually refers to a species of North American wild dog (Canis latrans).
John Carlos Frey is a six-time Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker, investigative journalist and author. Frey is based in Los Angeles, California.
Border Angels is a San Diego–based 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit charitable organization that is focused on migrant rights, immigration reform, and the prevention of immigrant deaths along the border. Border Angels, along with its more than 2000 volunteers serves San Diego County's immigrant population through various migrant outreach programs such as day laborer outreach and legal assistance, and provides life-saving assistance for migrants by placing bottled water in remote mountain and desert border regions of the San Diego and Imperial counties, California.
The Arizona borderlands are the geographic and cultural region north of the Arizona portion of the US-Mexico border. The area is unique in that it features both an international border and the Tohono O'oham sovereign nation along much of that border. Frequent and persistent topics of interest in the area include the presence of illegal immigration, the confluence of local, state, and national politics surrounding the border, conservation and sustainable living, and the presence of drug traffickers and paramilitary forces in the vicinity.
Prevention Through Deterrence is a set of policies instituted by the United States to deter the illegal crossing of its southern border with Mexico. First introduced in a document entitled "Border Patrol Strategic Plan of 1994 and Beyond", this policy has since been used to police high-traffic areas of the Mexico–United States border.
Jason De León is an anthropologist, a National Geographic Emerging Explorer (2013), and a MacArthur Foundation 2017 Fellow. He studies the migration from Latin America to the United States of clandestine migrants crossing the U.S.–Mexico border. De León is Professor of Anthropology and Chicana, Chicano, and Central American Studies and Director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles and Director of the Undocumented Migration Project, a non-profit research/arts/education collective aimed at documenting and raising awareness about migration issues while also assisting families of missing migrants search for their loved ones.
Hostile Terrain 94 (HT94) is a participatory art project created and organized by the Undocumented Migration Project (UMP). The exhibition is composed of approximately 3,400 handwritten toe tags that represent migrants who have died trying to cross the Sonoran Desert of Arizona between the mid-1990s and 2021. The tags are geolocated on a large wall map of the Arizona/Mexico border, showing the exact locations where human remains were found. This DIY installation is taking place at over 120 institutions––in the U.S. and abroad––with the intention to raise awareness about the humanitarian crisis at America's southern border and to engage with communities around the world in conversations about migration.
Borderland is a limited-run 2014 television documentary series, produced by Australian production company In Films. It was the first original commission for Al Jazeera America's documentary unit, premiering on 13 April 2014. The series followed six Americans as they retraced the fatal journey of three undocumented migrants who died attempting to cross into the United States.
Missing in Brooks County is a 2020 feature-length documentary, directed and filmed by Lisa Molomot and Jeff Bemiss. Its subject is the passage of illegal migrants through Brooks County, Texas, and specifically how thousands die of dehydration and exposure hiking some 35 miles (56 km) across open fields in 100 °F (38 °C) heat, to avoid the Border Patrol internal checkpoint near Falfurrias, Texas. The ground is sandy and taxing to walk in, and lack of landmarks makes it easy for migrants to get lost and go in circles. Brooks County leads the nation in migrant deaths; most bodies are never found, and most of those found are never identified. The county sheriff calls the county "the biggest cemetery in the United States". News stories have called it "migrants' Death Valley."