Radiolab | Border Trilogy Part 3: What Remains | Radiolab Podcast @Radiolabpod | Uploaded November 2023 | Updated October 2024, 21 hours ago.
From the Radiolab podcast: While scouring the Sonoran Desert for objects left behind by migrants crossing into the United States, anthropologist Jason De León happened upon something he didn't expect to get left behind: a human arm, stripped of flesh.
This macabre discovery sent him reeling, needing to know what exactly happened to the body, and how many migrants die that way in the wilderness. In researching border-crosser deaths in the Arizona desert, he noticed something surprising. Sometime in the late-1990s, the number of migrant deaths shot up dramatically and have stayed high since. Jason traced this increase to a Border Patrol policy still in effect, called “Prevention Through Deterrence.”
First aired in 2018 and over three episodes, Radiolab investigates this policy, its surprising origins, and the people whose lives were changed forever because of it.
Part 3: What Remains
The third episode in our Border Trilogy follows anthropologist Jason De León after he makes a grisly discovery in Arivaca, Arizona. In the middle of carrying out his pig experiments with his students, Jason finds the body of a 30-year-old female migrant. With the help of the medical examiner and some local humanitarian groups, Jason discovers her identity. Her name was Maricela. Jason then connects with her family, including her brother-in-law, who survived his own harrowing journey through Central America and the Arizona desert.
With the human cost of Prevention Through Deterrence weighing on our minds, we try to parse what drives migrants like Maricela to cross through such deadly terrain, and what, if anything, could deter them.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this episode, when it originally aired, incorrectly stated that a person's gender can be identified from bone remains. We've adjusted the audio to say that a person's sex can be identified from bone remains.
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From the Radiolab podcast: While scouring the Sonoran Desert for objects left behind by migrants crossing into the United States, anthropologist Jason De León happened upon something he didn't expect to get left behind: a human arm, stripped of flesh.
This macabre discovery sent him reeling, needing to know what exactly happened to the body, and how many migrants die that way in the wilderness. In researching border-crosser deaths in the Arizona desert, he noticed something surprising. Sometime in the late-1990s, the number of migrant deaths shot up dramatically and have stayed high since. Jason traced this increase to a Border Patrol policy still in effect, called “Prevention Through Deterrence.”
First aired in 2018 and over three episodes, Radiolab investigates this policy, its surprising origins, and the people whose lives were changed forever because of it.
Part 3: What Remains
The third episode in our Border Trilogy follows anthropologist Jason De León after he makes a grisly discovery in Arivaca, Arizona. In the middle of carrying out his pig experiments with his students, Jason finds the body of a 30-year-old female migrant. With the help of the medical examiner and some local humanitarian groups, Jason discovers her identity. Her name was Maricela. Jason then connects with her family, including her brother-in-law, who survived his own harrowing journey through Central America and the Arizona desert.
With the human cost of Prevention Through Deterrence weighing on our minds, we try to parse what drives migrants like Maricela to cross through such deadly terrain, and what, if anything, could deter them.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this episode, when it originally aired, incorrectly stated that a person's gender can be identified from bone remains. We've adjusted the audio to say that a person's sex can be identified from bone remains.
🎧 Subscribe to Radiolab wherever you listen to podcasts: bit.ly/3trXDLe
🔎 Subscribe to Radiolab on YouTube: bit.ly/3I9KI53
🖋 Subscribe to Radiolab’s Newsletter: radiolab.org/newsletter
🌱 Check out Radiolab's Starter Kit Playlist: bit.ly/3sX8f4P
👍 Like this video ✏️ and leave us a comment!
Follow Radiolab:
Instagram — instagram.com/radiolab
Twitter — twitter.com/Radiolab
Facebook — facebook.com/Radiolab
Our newsletter comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up here: radiolab.org/newsletter
Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab today: radiolab.org/the-lab
