Colibri Center for Human Rights

The Colibrí Center for Human Rights promotes healing and change by working with families of disappeared migrants to identify and honor those who have lost their lives on the US-Mexico border.

Since 1988, at least 7,505 human beings have lost their lives while attempting to cross the U.S. - Mexico border. More than 2,816 people remain disappeared.

In their absence, tens of thousands of families across the United States and Latin America are left with the agonizing uncertainty of not knowing what has happened to their loved ones. In addition to the emotional trauma they face each day, families are denied truth and justice. The consequences of border deaths and disappearances are felt throughout the Americas: families living in 14 countries and in 43 states across the U.S. have reported disappeared relatives to Colibrí.

Colibrí and families of the disappeared - along with medical examiners and other human rights organizations - refuse to let these lives be forgotten. Overcoming enormous challenges to identify the dead, together we search for answers, demand justice, and reunite families with their loved ones - important, unique, and irreplaceable human beings.

Through the Missing Migrant Project and DNA Program, Colibrí works with medical examiners to compare information families provide about the missing as well as DNA samples with unidentified remains recovered along the border in the hopes of giving families the answers they so deserve.

Beyond forensic justice work, Colibrí and impacted families build community and advocate for change through the Family Network, a network of mutual support and solidarity among families and friends of missing migrants across the Americas. The Family Network includes in-person meetings in cities around the U.S., private on-line gathering places, oral history projects, and a quarterly magazine.

Even in the midst of a pandemic, this human rights crisis continues. Since March 20, Colibrí has received 7 new missing persons reports, and knowing that Colibrí is a trusted ally, Family Network members have been turning to us for information about COVID-19.

For more information about our work, visit www.colibricenter.org.

Testimonials

I am Camerina Santa Cruz, the mother of five, the oldest of whom is Marco. I last saw him in 2013, in Mexico, just south of Tucson, where I live. He was going through a very difficult period in his life. Marco disappeared a few weeks later while crossing the desert in search of a better life for himself and his family.

When I learned that Marco had disappeared, I looked everywhere. I knocked on so many doors, but every one was closed to me. After two years I heard about Colibrí. They took a missing person report and sampled my DNA. They treated me with compassion and dignity.

In November 2018, Colibrí gave us the news that would change our lives forever: they had found my son. Our family's DNA matched positively with his remains in the Medical Examiner's Office. It was a devastating day. My hopes all those years of finding him alive were lost. Five long years of searching, five years of pain and frustration, came to an end.

People who disappear in the desert aren't animals, and they aren't just statistics. Like my son, they are human beings with families who love and miss them.