Immigration followed by desert détritus

Discarded possessions reveal dangers journey from Mexico in Arizona.The Sonoran Desert includes tons of discarded belongings of people without Papiere.A. Lichtenstein/Corbis

Every year thousands of people without papers make the dangerous crossing of Mexico to Arizona in the United States through the Sonoran Desert. An anthropologist hopes, demystify this clandestine crossings by collecting discarded belongings and mapping rest stops and analyzed them with scientific methods.

It is coloured in the United States debate on illegal immigration by myth, misunderstanding and a lack of scientific data, says Jason de Leon, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

"We have talked a lot in the science about migration, but it is usually kind sociological or survey data depending on after the fact," de Leon said. It is estimated that around 200 people near the border between Arizona and Mexico die.

Just trying to do research notes on the dangers of migration in such an environment. "I out there, have gotten in trouble, only borderline of sunstroke or something like that have." You get a feeling how difficult it is, "he says."

Since 2008 is he around 100 were used analyzed with the migrants for rest areas in a roughly 50-kilometre long stretch of desert between Nogales, Mexico, and Arivaca in Arizona. Working with students, it associates each site, remembers what it for - used was whether people have made beds, for example - and draws all dropped objects. He has collected more than 6 tons of items, including backpacks, shoes, first aid kits, clothing and water bottles.

These artifacts help detect de Leon migration trends and estimate the number of people, the travel. The presence of women and children shoes, for example, shows that it not only adult men of the desert.

Closer to Arivaca sites are greater and clothing and backpacks replace food packaging in the litter. "their leaders say, ' OK now you gotta clean." Looks like you went through the desert have simply.' To change your clothing, brush teeth, washing your face - that is, if you get a lot of this stuff left behind, "said de Leon." He presented his findings at the society for American archaeology annual meeting in Sacramento, California, on 1 April.

De Leon has also in the migrant shelter in the Mexican border city Nogales, for months survey starts those the journey through the desert and who recently deported to Mexico.

Overall, his data show that migrants get tighter controls around - such as increased patrols or fences - by routes, the more remote and dangerous. "Enforcement strategies that create suffering and death are clearly no match for the hunger and poverty, take the migrants to the United States," he says.

"This is a revolutionary type of research." De Leon is the archaeological envelope, "says Boytner of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. archaeologist ran" "His research have a very strong influence both in and outside the discipline." "It takes great courage to do what he is doing."

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De Leon expects his survey areas in Arizona, and possibly locations in California, Texas and New Mexico now expanded.

Study of these objects humanizes undocumented migration, says José Antonio Lucero, political scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle. Most people do not understand, what drives a person at home leave and a risky journey.

He says "Jason can say much about the whole experience by the artifacts and the people he meets,". "It is a world that we are not very well know." "I hope the project leads to a more enlightened discussion of immigration."

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