TUCSON, Ariz. — On Monday, nonprofit migrant advocacy group No More Deaths (No Más Muertes) released a comprehensive, interactive map of known migrant deaths along the Southwest border between 2002 and April 2025. “This data does not account for the unknown thousands who have disappeared while crossing the border, whose bodies have never been found, nor can it undo the loss and suffering caused by U.S. border policies, but it does provide the most comprehensive record of recovered remains available,” the group’s introduction to the map reads.
No More Deaths was founded in 2004 by a group of religious leaders in southern Arizona and has grown to be an outspoken voice against alleged abuses and data manipulation by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Volunteers for No More Deaths cache water and supplies in the desert for migrants crossing the border illegally — work that has landed a handful of members in jail.
The nonprofit has long argued that CBP’s own data doesn’t reflect the full scale of the humanitarian crisis at the border. Last year, No More Deaths released a map plotting the coordinates of migrant remains found in CBP’s El Paso Sector. An accompanying report accused the agency of undercounting deaths by a factor of four.
In response, the agency stressed its rescue programs and highlighted the number of migrants whose lives were saved by intercepting agents. Official CBP messaging tends to pin the blame on cartels who offer passage through the desert for a fee. “Smuggling organizations often abandon migrants in remote and dangerous areas, where severe heat, exposure, and miles of unforgiving desert pose countless threats to migrants,” the agency’s website reads. “Preventing the loss of life is core to our mission … tragically, the number of deaths in these harsh environments is still too high.”
No More Deaths believes that “prevention through deterrence” — a policy formally adopted by the U.S. Border Patrol in 1994 — has cost thousands of lives, many of which will never be counted. While numbers of crossings have reached historic lows during Trump’s second term, they have reason to believe that the pattern of undocumented deaths will continue. “With the new administration’s push for mass deportation, we will likely see more of our neighbors killed by violent U.S. border policy,” No More Deaths wrote in its latest report.