Despite record-low illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexican border, volunteers are still finding skeletal remains and human bones in the Southwest’s most treacherous stretches of terrain.
In particular, Battalion Search and Rescue, a group of volunteers, has reported finding 100 sets of skeletal remains in the remote deserts and mountains of New Mexico and Arizona.
Most of the discoveries have occurred in the last two years, and the majority of the remains appear to be those of women, James Holeman, the group’s founder, told Border Report. Most remains are still unidentified.
The dangerous journey poses numerous risks, including hunger, illness and death, violence and sexual assault, and extortion by drug cartels and human smugglers.
“It’s a shocking number; it’s a shocking statistic,” Holeman said Monday on Border Report Live. “Women and young girls have been found in a very small area just west of El Paso. Their average age is 29, the youngest are a pair of 16-year-old girls.”
While Democrats downplay the destruction of Biden’s open border policies, Border Czar Tom Homan and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have highlighted the human toll of the illegal migrant crisis in recent press conferences and border updates.
Noem said during a recent event in Eagle Pass, Texas, that “thousands of people died” because President Joe Biden and the Democrats decided to “cut the fence and allow an invasion to happen.”
The open border enabled the proliferation of human and drug trafficking, giving cartels free rein to bring in unprecedented amounts of illegal drugs, charge migrants exorbitant fees them to get them across the border, and exploit and abuse women and children.
The Biden administration also lost track of an estimated 300,000 unaccompanied minors who crossed the border.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney S. Scott said CBP has delivered historic results for nine consecutive months, with 0 parole releases and an average of 196 USBP apprehensions per day on the southwest border.
“This historic reduction reflects the dedication of our agents and officers to securing our borders, protecting our communities, and upholding the rule of law,” Scott said.
CBPreleased data from January 2026 last month, indicating Border Patrol apprehensions have dropped 96% from the previous administration’s monthly average.
Along the southwest border, CBP encountered 9,726 illegal aliens, an 84% decrease from January 2025. Border Patrol apprehended 6,070 illegal aliens on the southwest border, a 79% decrease from January 2025.
The number of reported fatalities dropped dramatically in 2025, with law enforcement coming across 35 bodies, while so far in 2026 they’ve only encountered four, according to Border Report.
Border Patrol agents encountered 149 deceased migrants in fiscal year 2023 and a record 176 in fiscal year 2024, when Newsweek and other outlets reported on the skeletal remains. But federal agents and volunteers on the ground have suspected those numbers were “the tip of the iceberg.”
“This is such an underreported story of migrants and refugees that succumbed in the desert […] some may have died of unnatural causes,” Holeman told Border Report.
Last month, the volunteer search group spoke before the Doña Ana County Commission about its findings, including two new skulls, and pressed for more help from law enforcement, Border Report said.
Battalion Search and Rescue began looking for imperiled and deceased migrants back in 2020 in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona.
The group shifted focus to the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico after a surge of migrant deaths in the El Paso Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol in 2023 and 2024.
Volunteer search efforts have located 90 sites with human remains, some from more than one victim of the heat, cold or possible smugglers’ violence. Smugglers often lead migrants through dangerous and desolate passages, sometimes losing track of people or leaving those who fall behind.
“We know that over 70 percent of women and girls are assaulted somewhere on their journey,” Holeman told Border Report. “This is where we need government agencies to step in and do the proper investigations and determine the cause of death.”
Even with the historic drop in crossings, it doesn’t mean the cartels have stopped trying to find new ways to smuggle humans and drugs into the country.
In February, Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents in coordination with Yuma Air Branch Air and Marine agents arrested a cartel smuggling scout in the Sierra Pinta Mountains. The mountain range, about 22 miles long, is also in the arid Sonoran Desert in Arizona.
Cartel scouts use vantage points to observe and track of law enforcement movements, CBP said. During a search of the site, agents discovered food supplies, equipment and a solar panel indicating an extended scouting mission.
CBP detained and transported the individual to Wellton Station for processing. The case will be referred to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the State of Arizona for prosecution and for eventual removal proceedings. The subject has two prior expulsions, CBP said.
“These ruthless transnational criminal organizations have no regard for human life, and the dismantling of these cartel networks ensures a secure border that increases the safety of agents and our communities,” Acting Chief Patrol Agent Dustin Caudle said.
