Naming what has no name: thinking about migrant “disappearance” at the Mexico-US border (Arizona)

Migrants, remains, UBC (Unidentified Border Crosser or Undocumented Border Crosser), bodies in the desert, unidentified and unknown, John/Jane Doe, disappeared migrants, death person, missing, etc. Those are the categories that governmental and non-governmental agents, as well as scholars, use in the city of Tucson, Arizona, to refer to migrants who cross the border and whose whereabouts are unknown. In this article, based on qualitative fieldwork (mainly in-depth interviews), we analyze the names that those agents use or create to talk about the situation. We show, at the same time, how the more consolidated categories — specially forced disappearance—, are exceeded when dealing with complex phenomenon such as transnational migrations.