much shorter wait for DNA test results
Identifying illegal migrant dead is faster
By Mariana Alvarado Avalos
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 07.23.2008
Changes in Mexico are making it faster to identify illegal immigrants who die trying to enter the United States.
The wait for DNA test results, which used to stretch up to a year, is now just a few weeks. That means less anguish for families desperately searching for missing loved ones and greater ability for local officials to close out cases more quickly.
Identifying bodies found in the desert can be exceptionally difficult because half have no identification. It also can be cumbersome and costly, largely because of bureaucratic requirements in Mexico and the challenge of two countries working together.
The Pima County Medical Examiner's Office has identified about 800 bodies found in the desert from 2001 to 2007, but 300 are still unidentified. From December 2005 to late 2007, DNA samples from relatives looking for loved ones and from migrants found dead in the desert were analyzed and compared at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, through an agreement between the university and the Mexican government.
A five-month investigation by the Arizona Daily Star last year found that the identification process was slowed by long waits for lab results and by Mexican bureaucracy.
Now the Mexican government is allowing its 49 regional consulate offices to send DNA samples to whichever lab they believe offers the best service and is the most efficient and cost-effective.
The decentralized program mostly affects the Tucson region, which has the most border-crosser deaths. In October, the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office stopped sending DNA samples to Baylor at the request of the Mexican Consulate in Tucson. It now sends them to Bode Technology in Virginia, which helped identify victims of the World Trade Center attacks and Hurricane Katrina through DNA testing.
Body identified in six weeks
Through the new process, MarÃ*a Ocotlán Blancas Rosete's body was identified in just six weeks. Blancas Rosete, of the central Mexican state of Tlaxcala, disappeared trying to enter the United States illegally with her sister, Yesenia Blancas Rosete.
The sisters fell ill during the trip, and their uncle left them behind and went to look for help. Later, Border Patrol agents found Yesenia's body, but not MarÃ*a Ocotlán's.
Nine months later, Border Patrol agents found skeletal remains about 60 miles southwest of Tucson on the Tohono O'odham Reservation, not far from where agents had found Yesenia's body.
That single clue would be crucial to MarÃ*a's identification because it suggested a link to Yesenia, and to the family searching for her missing sibling. To verify the connection, samples of DNA provided by the women's three other siblings were sent to Bode Technology under the new decentralized process. The samples were among eight Pima County cases sent to the new lab so far for DNA testing.
"This is the lab that offered us the best price, the one with more experience and the one that gave us a detailed statement about their background on how they have worked in natural disasters and massive events," said Juan Manuel Calderon Jaimes, the Mexican consul in Tucson.
The local Mexican consul will work with Bode Technology under a pilot program, and, assuming the relationship works out, the two parties will sign a formal agreement, said Alejandro Ramos, speaking on behalf of the Mexican Consulate in Tucson.
The cost for the eight cases sent to Virginia will be about $8,000, said Ed Huffine of Bode Technology. That's about half the cost of similar testing at Baylor.
In late May, when Bode Technology received the first samples from the Mexican Consulate in Tucson, Huffine estimated the testing would take four to eight weeks because different bone samples respond differently to DNA extraction techniques and lab workers must determine which of five methods of testing will work.
Baylor University used only mitochondrial DNA, which can trace maternal genetic lineage.
"We have to find the best method to get the DNA out of the bone sample so it can be tested," Huffine said. "If the first method doesn't work, then we try a second method, so on, so on, until we find what the best method is."
Mexico is doing its part
Along with the changes in DNA testing, Mexico is taking other steps to speed the identification of illegal immigrants.
Oscar de la Torre Amezcua, Mexican consul in Douglas, said his office used to send all its paperwork through another consular office, which slowed the process.
"Now we are working directly with the Foreign Affairs state delegations" in Mexico, he said. "We used to spend six months, eight months, in the identification process, and that now takes a week, a week and a half, or even two weeks. That helps end the uncertainty for families."
The Mexican Consulate in Douglas had seven migrant death cases in 2007, and all were identified through DNA testing, de la Torre said. The new initiative recognizes that every consular jurisdiction is different, he said.
"They have given us the opportunity to make contact with other labs that can help us with the same efficiency, quality and speed but are closer to our locations with the idea of making the paperwork easier," he said. This year the Mexican Consulate in Douglas is working with Chromosomal Laboratories Inc., based in Phoenix. So far, the lab has completed one identification and has two pending cases, said Jim Bentley, the lab's vice president. DNA results through Chromosomal take about four weeks.
The Mexican Consulate in Nogales, Ariz., has not used a lab for DNA testing this year, but is considering various options for when one is needed. In the past, it had four bodies identified through DNA testing at Baylor.
Advocates for UA
Mexican authorities in Tucson say that with the new process, identification will be faster. But non-profit organizations and immigration advocates say the Mexican government did not fully consider a proposal to do the DNA testing at the University of Arizona.
"We want (testing) to be done here in Arizona. For me, it makes more sense," said Kat RodrÃ*guez of Coalición de Derechos Humanos, a non-profit organization that advocates for migrants' rights.
Some equipment required to set up the lab is already in place, but moving ahead would take $150,000 to $200,000 in start-up costs, said Liz Wood, a UA researcher and author of the proposal to do DNA testing here.
"Extracting DNA from bone requires special containment facilities that our group doesn't have," Wood said.
Pima County Supervisor Richard ElÃ*as has been working with Wood and other advocates on the proposal for about two years, and provided $2,500 to draft the proposal from his District 5 budget. But so far, a funding source for the startup costs has not been identified.
Tucson Consul Calderon said he would be willing to work with the university and to set a formal plan, but his office does not have the resources to pay for the lab startup.
Bruce Anderson, a forensic anthropologist with the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office, said it's not important where the lab is located, as long as it is fast and accurate.
"It's more important to get a lab that knows how to get DNA out of a bone," he said.
For families like that of MarÃ*a Ocotlán Blancas Rosete, what matters most is ending the uncertainty as quickly as possible.
"They said (identification) was going to take a while — in fact, they said it would be up to three months," said Everardo Blancas, MarÃ*a's brother. He received the DNA test results in less than two months.
"Unfortunately, we received bad news," he said, which only compounded the painful news of his other sister's death nine months earlier. "We were hoping it wasn't her, but, at the same time, we can say now we are more relaxed."
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