[HiJinx]

Some migrants claw at the ground with their fingernails, trying to hollow out a cooler spot to die. Others pull themselves through the sand on their bellies, like they're swimmers or snakes. The madness sometimes prompts people to slit their own throats or to hang themselves from trees with their belts.

Read any Western fiction - Louis L'Amour, Luke Short, Zane Grey - and you will see these descriptions of death in the desert. I seriously challenge the author to prove that this is what is happening to the illegal immigrants.

I'm not about to diminish the reality of such deaths, but I resent the use of hyperbole and fiction to sensationalize a political position. AZCentral is the on-line presence of the Arizona Republic, once a respected conservative publication.

[kaktuskid]

A publication that has long been Gannettstitized!

[PuNcH]

Some migrants claw at the ground with their fingernails, trying to hollow out a cooler spot to die. Others pull themselves through the sand on their bellies, like they're swimmers or snakes. The madness sometimes prompts people to slit their own throats or to hang themselves from trees with their belts.

This past year, the bodies of 205 undocumented immigrants were found in Arizona. Official notations of their deaths are sketchy, contained in hundreds of pages of government reports.

We are supposed to believe that they are all dying of exposure in the desert but the facts are "sketchy". I notice this author has said nothing about the corpses found in the desert that were shot execution style. Gee maybe some of these people didnt go mad and cut their throats and drag themselves around on their bellies and hang themselves. Maybe they were murdered? Maybe allowing a crime wave on the border results drug smuggling, robbery, turf wars and murder?

[bat1816]

You are correct, the author dramatically exaggerated the conditions of death. First, it doesn't get anywhere near 160 degrees in the deserts of the Southwest. I work on the border and have seen over 400 corpses and hundreds more of people who have been rescued before death. And I have never seen anyone hang themself, cut their own throat, or dig into the ground to die in a cooler spot.

In almost every case, the migrant sits or lays down under a tree or in a wash to cool down. But without water, their body temperature doesn't cool down and eventually they lose consciousness and organs begin to shut down until they die.