Every year, tens of thousands of people from Latin America journey north toward the U.S. border, fleeing violence and poverty. Hundreds of them disappear along this land route, which the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has classified as the most dangerous in the world. Hundreds more are found dead—in the desert, in the border river Rio Grande, or in secret graves in Mexico's border regions. NGOs suspect the actual number of victims is much higher.

For five weeks, author Nora Belghaus and photographer Helena Lea Manhartsberger traveled together through Mexico and the U.S. state of Arizona. They sought to understand how the U.S. border regime turns migration into a deadly trap for people from Mexico and Central America, who traverse thousands of kilometers on foot, by bus, or atop freight trains—and why they are undeterred by the risks.

Their journey led them to follow the trail of a missing young man who, in 2020, had set out for the United States in search of a better life, only to vanish in the Sonoran Desert along Arizona's border. Their investigation took them all the way to the autopsy room of a U.S. medical examiner, where the remains of hundreds of missing migrants lie unidentified due to a lack of funding. This is a story about the hope of those left behind—and the hindered power of forensics.