De León, Jason. The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail. University of California Press, 2015.
Drawing on the four major fields of anthropology, Jason De León uses an innovative combination of ethnography, archeology, linguistics, and forensic science to produce a scathing critique of Prevention through Deterrence, the federal border enforcement policy that encourages migrants to cross in areas characterized by extreme environmental conditions and high risk of death.

Ecologies of Migrant CareEcologies of Migrant Care is an initiative of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at New York University that aims to research, document, and make visible the region-wide humanitarian emergency that is resulting from the ongoing expulsion of refugees and migrants from Central America, and diverse and widespread responses to this situation by individuals, communities of faith, non-governmental organizations, and social movements across the region.

Hostile Terrain 94Hostile Terrain 94 (HT94) is a participatory art project sponsored and organized by the Undocumented Migration Project (UMP), a nonprofit research-art-education-media collective, directed by anthropologist Jason De León. The exhibition is composed of over 3,200 handwritten toe tags that represent migrants who have died trying to cross the Sonoran Desert of Arizona between the mid-1990s and 2019. These tags are geolocated on a wall map of the desert showing the exact locations where remains were found.

Map of Migrant Mortality
With the help of the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office, the nonprofit humanitarian organization Humane Borders/Fronteras Compasivas has created a continuously updated map of migrant deaths. The map is interactive and searchable. It shows the exact location where migrant remains have been found, and also the name and gender of the deceased, when known and once family has been notified, date of discovery, and cause of death, if known.

Mujer Migrante Memorial (MMM)
MMM is a real and virtual installation that honors the lives and deaths of female migrants whose remains were recovered from the Arizona desert. The installation took place on June 19, 2021, at The Wall that Gives/El muro que da in Venice Beach, California. The virtual installation includes an extensive narrative on migrant death in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands; an interactive map; and a poem that honors female migrants in English, Spanish, and a number of indigenous languages (Nahuatl; Mixtec; Purepecha; Tzotzil, and Zapotec).

Nazario, Sonia. Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Family.Random House, 2007.
Enrique’s Journey recounts the unforgettable quest of a Honduran boy looking for his mother, eleven years after she is forced to leave her starving family to find work in the United States. Braving unimaginable peril, often clinging to the sides and tops of freight trains, Enrique travels through hostile worlds full of thugs, bandits, and corrupt cops. But he pushes forward, relying on his wit, courage, hope, and the kindness of strangers.

Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner (PCOME) Annual Report 2020.Every year, the PCOME publishes an extensive report that includes a detailed section on undocumented border crossers whose remains have been found in Pima County and the southern Arizona desert.

Urrea, Luis Alberto. The Devil’s Highway: A True Story.Back Bay Books, 2008.
In May 2001, a group of men attempted to cross the border into the desert of southern Arizona, through the deadliest region of the continent, a place called the Devil’s Highway. Fathers and sons, brothers and strangers, entered a desert so harsh and desolate that even the Border Patrol is afraid to travel through it. Twelve came back out.