Identifying Deceased Would-Be Border Crosers

Photo by Drew Anthony Smith for the WSJ

Lori Baker is an associate anthropology professor at Baylor. In her spare time, she works to extract DNA from the collected remains of would-be border crossers in an attempt to identify the deceased.

The Wall Street Journal is running a story about Ms. Baker and other volunteer scientists and activists. They are working identify those who have died in South Texas trying to cross the border and whose remains have been buried in unmarked county graves.

NPR also ran a story about Ms. Baker last month. This portion of the interview was particularly compelling:

Baker remembers the first time she identified a body. It was a woman who lived with her mother and struggled to support her two young daughters. The woman decided to migrate to the U.S. to work and send money back to care for her children. But when she was injured during the trip, her smugglers left her behind.

“I thought, ‘I gotta find out from that mom if it would have been better just not to know — thinking that maybe she lived and would come home someday,’ ” Baker said. “And she said, ‘No. The hope eats you alive every day.’ And now they say they are blessed because they’re able to lay flowers on her grave.”

-KitJ