Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel recently joined two other agencies as a means following up on a program designed to bring closure for Mexican families missing loved ones in southern Arizona.
CBP agents paired with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers from the Tucson Field Office and the non-governmental group Border Action Network in meeting with Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) deputies at the Mariposa Crossing in Nogales.
Officials said the organizations worked to facilitate MCSO’s ability to collect DNA samples from relatives of persons suspected to have perished in the Sonoran Desert.
The effort allowed families unable to attend MCSO’s Missing in Arizona event, which was held in Phoenix this past October, an opportunity to provide a DNA sample.
The cheek-swab DNA samples collected, officials said, would be compared to existing samples in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUS) in hopes of identifying human remains.
CBP personnel said the agency’s participation provides an additional database resource on missing people to compare with evidence collected in national and international databases.
In Fiscal Year 2017, Missing Migrants Project (MMP) received more than 1,500 requests to help find missing persons or to identify found remains.
MMP agents work with multiple law enforcement agencies, third-party reporting entities, foreign consulates and non-governmental organizations to reunite missing family members and to provide closure for families of previously unidentified deceased persons, officials said.