- In 2011, the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner (OME) recovered 184 dead migrants from southern Arizona's Sonoran Desert. Dead in the Desert takes you inside the Pima County OME, as medical investigators attempt to identify and repatriate the bodies of two migrants recovered from the desert on June 26, 2011. Join Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Gregory Hess and his team of investigators and forensic pathologists as they look for clues that may lead to the identity of two men. John Doe: ML11-1217 was recovered in the rural community of Arivaca, Ariz. after falling from a 60-foot cliff while trying to evade Border Patrol agents. John Doe: ML11-1215 was found on the Tohono O'odham Nation, which borders Mexico. He was lying under a mesquite tree with nearly all his clothes strewn about the tree and the ground around him. Dead in the Desert captures the real struggle faced by those who cross the Sonoran Desert in search of a better life - and the unfortunate souls who die trying.—Anonoymus
- Each year, the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner (Pima County OME) recovers hundreds of deceased migrants from southern Arizona's Sonoran Desert. Dead in the Desert takes you into the Pima County OME as staff attempts to identify two migrants found in the Sonoran Desert on June 26, 2011. The documentary also takes viewers to migrant shelters and Santa Muerte shrines along the Arizona-Sonora border; to survey the newly constructed border fence in Nogales, Ariz. with the U.S. Border Patrol; to a northern Mexico town whose economy depends on migration; and ride along with a humanitarian aid organization that maintains water stations in desert for crossing migrants. Experience how migrants prepare and cross the Sonoran Desert into the United States, and what happens to the ones who don't make it.
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