They Died Near the Border. Art Students Hope to Bring Them Back

Here is a sign of the times from the New York Times.  For years, migrants have died trying to cross the desert and the U.S./Mexico border.  Death on the border has been an all-too-common occurrence.

The effort to identify the dead has moved from the medical examiner’s office to a workshop in facial reconstruction at the New York Academy of Art.  The class, taught by Joe Mullins, a forensic artist with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, focuses on reconstructing the faces of migrants who lost their lives in the desert. The workshop reflects the growing sophistication of the field of forensic facial reconstruction — a fusion of science, art and anthropology in which the skull is used to build a face and to help investigators identify the dead.