Tag Archives: Arizona

‘It may save your life’: Facing virus surge, more U.S. states mandate masks

By Andrew Hay

(Reuters) – California, North Carolina and a string of U.S. cities mandated or urged mandatory mask use on Thursday to get a grip on spiraling coronavirus cases as at least six states set daily records.

Putting aside concerns about individual rights and political unpopularity, U.S. governors and mayors said they were turning to compulsory face coverings to stop the virus running out of control as economies reopened.

On a day when Florida posted 3,207 new cases, its second daily record in a week, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings ordered obligatory mask use, telling residents of Orlando and other cities it would help them avoid a second shutdown.

California Governor Gavin Newsom ordered mask use in most places as the state for the second day in a row registered over 4,000 new cases.

As Arizona posted another daily case record, the Democratic mayors of Tucson and Phoenix respectively ordered and prepared to vote on mandatory face coverings after Republican Governor Doug Ducey bowed to pressure and let cities set mask rules.

“This piece of protection may even save your life,” North Carolina Democratic Governor Roy Cooper told reporters, adding that he was considering statewide obligatory mask use on a day when statewide COVID-19 hospitalizations set a new high.

A month after many governors reopened their economies, a growing number are adopting U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance that masks are essential to prevent community spread.

Resistance to face masks took on a partisan edge after President Donald Trump opposed them, telling the Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Thursday that some people wear them to show opposition to him.

But with businesses ranging from Las Vegas casinos to hardware chains requiring their use, masks are becoming commonplace in the United States.

In Texas, the mayors of the state’s nine biggest cities asked Republican Governor Greg Abbott this week to grant them authority to set mask regulations.

As Oklahoma reported its second day of record coronavirus cases, the Tulsa arena hosting a Trump rally on Saturday said it would encourage all attendees to remain masked throughout the event and issue staff with personal protective gear.

Trump has pushed ahead with the rally – which would be the biggest U.S. indoor social gathering in three months – even as health experts worry assembling thousands of people inside an arena – particularly if many are not wearing masks – could turn it into a virus “super-spreader event.”

Nationwide, COVID-19 cases rose by 26,357 on Thursday to about 2.2 million, according to a Reuters tally, marking the biggest daily increase in nearly two weeks. There have been 118,377 U.S. deaths, an increase of 684 on Thursday.

(Reporting by Andrew Hay in Cañon, New Mexico; Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and David Schwartz in Phoenix; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Some scold, others cheerlead: U.S. states tackle reopening differently

By Maria Caspani and Jonathan Allen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The two most populous U.S. states took markedly different approaches to reopening on Monday with New York scolding local governments for not enforcing social distancing and California encouraging counties to restart economies if they met criteria.

Scenes of merrymakers gathering outside bars prompted the governor of New York, the state hardest hit along with New Jersey by the coronavirus pandemic, to urge local officials and businesses on Monday to strictly enforce reopening guidelines.

“To the local governments I say, ‘Do your job,'” Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters. Over the weekend he criticized New York City street crowds outside bars and asked people to adhere to six feet (two meters) of distance from others.

Both Cuomo and neighboring New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said they were keeping open the option of reimposing restrictions if officials fail to stop large public gatherings that risk leading to a second wave of infections.

In California, Governor Gavin Newsom has left it up to individual counties on when to reopen once they meet state guidelines. He reminded county officials of the risks of not restarting economies, as well as reopening them.

Newsom told a news briefing on Monday people could not be “locked away for months and months and months,” especially those among the 5.5 million Americans who have lost their jobs since mid-March. He said some had also lost health coverage and were among the many people suffering severe mental and physical health problems during the pandemic.

In enforcing coronavirus restrictions, he said the state and counties could not “see lives and livelihoods completely destroyed without considering the health impact of those decisions as well.”

“As we mix, as we reopen, inevitably we’re going to see an increase in the total number of cases; it’s our capacity to address that that is so foundational,” said Newsom.

NEW FORECAST

California is one of four states that is projected to see the biggest spike in deaths in the months ahead, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington.

Its new forecast on Monday forecast over 200,000 deaths due to COVID-19 in the United States through the beginning of October, mainly due to reopening measures underway.

The IHME, whose estimates are cited by many health experts, projected Florida will see its deaths nearly triple to 18,675 deaths from 6,559 on June 10, while California can expect to see deaths increase by 72 percent to 15,155 from 8,812, it said.

Georgia and Arizona also have sharp increases in deaths forecast by the institute.

New York and New Jersey between them account for more than a third of the nearly 116,000 U.S. deaths, but deaths and hospitalizations have been on the decline of late. Both have followed strict health guidelines for reopening businesses when all measures of infection drop – new cases, deaths, hospitalizations and positive rates among those getting tested.

Scott Gottlieb, the former Food and Drug Administration director who has advised the White House on the coronavirus, said on Monday that flare-ups needed to be addressed with aggressive contact tracing and targeted responses.

“We’re not going to be able to shut down the country again this summer. We’re probably not going to be able to shut down the country again this fall,” he said on CNBC.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington, Jonathan Allen and Maria Caspani in New York, Lisa Shumaker in Chicago, Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Writing by Sonya Hepinstall and Andrew Hay; Editing by Howard Goller, Bill Tarrant and Cynthia Osterman)

Fears of second U.S. coronavirus wave rise on worrisome spike in cases, hospitalizations

By Lisa Shumaker, Carl O’Donnell and Michael Erman

(Reuters) – About half a dozen states including Texas and Arizona are grappling with a rising number of coronavirus patients filling hospital beds, fanning concerns that the reopening of the U.S. economy may spark a second wave of infections.

The rally in global stocks came crashing down on Thursday over worries of a pandemic resurgence. The last time the S&P 500 and Dow fell as much in one day was in March, when U.S. coronavirus cases began surging.

A recent spike in cases in about a dozen states partially reflects increased testing. But many of those states are also seeing rising hospitalizations and some are beginning to run short on intensive care unit (ICU) beds.

Texas has seen record hospitalizations for three days in a row, and in North Carolina only 13% of the state’s ICU beds are available due to severe COVID-19 cases. Houston’s mayor said the city was ready to turn its NFL stadium into a make-shift hospital if necessary.

Arizona has seen a record number of hospitalizations at 1,291. The state health director told hospitals this week to activate emergency plans and increase ICU capacity. About three-quarters of the state’s ICU beds are filled, according to the state website.

“You’re really crossing a threshold in Arizona,” said Jared Baeten, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington. “The alarming thing would be if the numbers start to rise in places that have clearly already peaked and are on their downtrend,” he said, referring to New York and other Northeastern states where new cases and deaths have plummeted.

Health experts worry there could be a further rise in infections from nationwide protests over racial injustice and police brutality that packed people together starting two weeks ago.

STATES WITH RISING CASES

Arizona, Utah and New Mexico all posted rises in new cases of 40% or higher for the week ended June 7, compared with the prior seven days, according to a Reuters analysis. New cases rose in Florida, Arkansas, South Carolina and North Carolina by more than 30% in the past week.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease official, told Canada’s CBC news that more cases are inevitable as restrictions are lifted.

“We also as a whole have been going down with cases,” Fauci said. “But I think what you mentioned about some states now having an increase in the number of cases makes one pause and be a little bit concerned.”

Even if hospitals are not overwhelmed by coronavirus cases, more hospitalizations mean more deaths in the coming weeks and months, said Spencer Fox, research associate at the University of Texas at Austin.

“We are starting to see very worrying signs about the course the pandemic is taking in cities and states in the U.S. and around the world,” he said. “When you start seeing those signs, you need to act fairly quickly.”

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths are now over 113,000, by far the most in the world. That figure could exceed 200,000 at some point in September, Ashish Jha, the head of Harvard’s Global Health Institute, told CNN.

Jha said the United States was the only major country to reopen without getting its case growth to a controlled level – defined as a rate of people testing positive for the coronavirus remaining at 5% or lower for at least 14 days. Nationally, that figure has been between 4% and 7% in recent weeks, according to a Reuters analysis.

Health officials have stressed that wearing masks in public and keeping physically apart can greatly reduce transmissions, but many states have not required masks.

“I want the reopening to be successful,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top executive for the county that encompasses Houston, told reporters. “But I’m growing increasingly concerned that we may be approaching the precipice of a disaster.”

(Reporting by Michael Erman and Carl O’Donnell in New York and Lisa Shumaker in Chicago; Additional reporting by Lewis Krauskopf in New York and Brad Brooks in Austin, Texas; Writing by Lisa Shumaker; editing by Peter Henderson and Bill Berkrot)

‘This is about livelihoods’: U.S. virus hotspots reopen despite second wave specter

By Andrew Hay

(Reuters) – Facing budget shortfalls and double-digit unemployment, governors of U.S. states that are COVID-19 hotspots on Thursday pressed ahead with economic reopenings that have raised fears of a second wave of infections.

The moves by governors of states such as Florida and Arizona came as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the United States could not afford to let the novel coronavirus shut its economy again and global stocks tanked on worries of a pandemic resurgence.

As Florida reported its highest daily tally of new coronavirus cases on Thursday, Governor Ron DeSantis unveiled a plan to restart public schools at “full capacity” in the autumn, arguing the state’s economy depended on it.

North Carolina reported record COVID-19 hospitalizations for a fifth straight day on Thursday, a day after legislators passed a bill to reopen gyms, fitness centers and bars in a state where more than one in ten workers are unemployed.

Governors of hotspot states face pressure to fire up economies facing fiscal year 2021 budget shortfalls of up to 30% below pre-pandemic projections in the case of New Mexico, according to data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities think tank. Nevada, which has seen cases increase by nearly a third in the past two weeks, is suffering 28% unemployment, based on U.S Bureau of Labor statistics.

“This is about saving lives, this is also about livelihoods in the state of Arizona,” Governor Doug Ducey told a news briefing, adding that a second shutdown of the economy was “not under discussion” despite official figures showing a 211% rise in virus cases over the past 14 days.

About half a dozen states including Texas and Arizona are grappling with rising numbers of coronavirus patients filling hospital beds.

Ducey and Texas Governor Greg Abbott say their hospitals have the capacity to avoid the experiences of New York, where the system was stretched to near breaking point as some COVID patients were treated in hallways and exhausted workers stacked bodies in refrigerated trailers.

‘FOOT ON THE BRAKE’

A second wave of coronavirus deaths is expected to begin in the United States in September, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation said on Thursday, citing a surge in mobility since April. Its latest model projects 170,000 deaths by Oct. 1, with a possible range between 133,000 and 290,000.

A note of caution came from Utah, where Governor Gary Herbert said most of the state would pause its reopening after a 126% rise in cases over the past two weeks.

Austin, Texas on Thursday also said it would likely extend stay-at-home and mask orders past June 15 after the state reported its highest new case count the previous day. Austin health officials blamed a record week of infections on easing business restrictions and Memorial Day gatherings.

There was no talk of new shutdowns.

In New Mexico, Health Secretary Kathy Kunkel pointed to outbreaks at the Otero County Prison Facility, as well as in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, as factors behind an uptick in cases.

“It means a little bit of a foot on the brake, watch carefully for the next couple of weeks, not much in the way of major changes in what we’re doing,” said Human Services Secretary David Scrase.

(Reporting By Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Additional reporting by Brad Brooks in Austin and David Schwartz in Phoenix; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Daniel Wallis)

Arizona calls for emergency plan as COVID-19 spikes after reopening

By Andrew Hay

(Reuters) – Arizona again told hospitals to activate the coronavirus emergency plans after cases spiked following reopening, turning it into a U.S. virus hotspot along with neighboring Southwest states.

The state’s stay-at-home order ended on May 15, and its cases have increased 115 percent since then, leading a former state health chief to warn Arizona may need new social distancing measures or field hospitals.

State health director Cara Christ on Saturday told hospitals to “fully activate” emergency plans – a message she last sent on March 25 – after Arizona’s largest medical network Banner Health warned it was reaching its capacity in intensive care unit beds.

“Since May 15, ventilated COVID-19 patients have quadrupled,” Banner Health tweeted on Monday, adding it had hit capacity for some patients needing cardiac and respiratory care.

The alert came after Arizona, New Mexico and Utah each posted rises of 40% or higher in new cases for the week ended June 7 compared with the prior seven days, joining hotpots in the South like Florida and Arkansas, according to a Reuters analysis.

University of Washington researchers estimated on Monday 145,728 people could die of COVID-19 in the United States by August, raising their forecast by over 5,000 fatalities in a matter of days.

In Arizona, a “cavalier” exit from the state’s successful stay-at-home program caused the sudden case surge, said former state health chief Will Humble.

Humble said Governor Doug Ducey let Arizonans voluntarily follow Centers for Disease Control guidance but must now impose measures like mandatory face mask use inside public spaces. A failure to do so will leave Ducey with two drastic choices, he added.

“He’s going to have to either A) implement a field hospital plan, B) do another stay-at-home order, or C) both,” said Humble, head of health professionals organization the Arizona Public Health Association.

Ducey last week told a press briefing that the increase in cases was to be expected due to a rise in testing.

(Reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Aurora Ellis)

U.S. coronavirus cases surge in southwestern states

(Reuters) – Twenty-one U.S. states reported weekly increases in new cases of COVID-19, with Arizona, Utah and New Mexico all posting rises of 40% or higher for the week ended June 7 compared with the prior seven days, according to a Reuters analysis.

The three southwestern states joined hot spots in the South to help push the national number of new infections in the first week of June up 3%, the first increase after five weeks of declines, according to the analysis of data from The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort to track the outbreak.

(Open https://tmsnrt.rs/2WTOZDR in an external browser for a Reuters interactive)

In New Mexico about half of the new cases were from one prison in Otero County, state health officials said.

Utah said at least 287 of the state’s 2,269 new cases were tied to an outbreak at a meat processing plant in Cache County.

Arizona did not immediately respond when asked to comment.

Many states have ramped up testing for the novel coronavirus in recent weeks. Nationally, over 545,000 tests were reported in a single day last week, a new record.

In Arizona, the percentage of tests that came back positive for the new virus rose to 12% in the week ended June 7, from 7% a month ago, according to the Reuters analysis. In Utah, the positive test rate rose to 9% from 4%.

Nationally, the rate of positive tests has hovered between 4% and 7% for several weeks.

In the South, new cases of COVID-19 in Florida, Arkansas, South Carolina and North Carolina all rose by more than 30% in the past week.

Florida attributed the increase to more testing, while South Carolina was investigating outbreaks in three counties. The other states had no immediate comment. Positive test rates held steady in these states over the past four weeks, the analysis showed.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended states wait for new COVID-19 cases to fall for 14 days before easing social distancing restrictions.

Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have met that criteria for the week ended June 7, compared with 13 states the prior week, the analysis showed. Pennsylvania and New York lead with eight straight weeks of declines.

Graphic – Tracking the novel coronavirus in the U.S.: https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS-USA/0100B5K8423/index.html

Graphic – World-focused tracker with country-by-country interactive: https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/COUNTRIES/oakveqlyvrd/index.html?id=united-kingdom

(Reporting by Chris Canipe in Kansas City, Missouri, and Lisa Shumaker in Chicago; Editing by Tiffany Wu)

Heavy snow in U.S. West and Midwest could disrupt post-Thanksgiving travel

(Reuters) – A major winter storm will lumber across the United States over the weekend, dumping snow as it moves east from the U.S. West and threatening to disrupt millions of people traveling home after celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday.

Over a foot of snow is forecast in mountainous parts of Colorado, Utah and Arizona on Friday before the storm system slips toward the upper Midwest, the National Weather Service said.

Freezing rain will likely turn to snowy blizzards in parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan beginning on Friday night, with more than 18 inches of snowfall possible in some mountainous areas, the service said.

Some snow could appear in the Northeast by Sunday morning, the service said. New York City and other places further down the Atlantic Coast can expect a wintry mix of precipitation on Sunday.

More than 4 million Americans were expected to fly and another 49 million expected to drive at least 50 miles or more this week for Thanksgiving, according to the American Automobile Association.

Wintry weather disrupted travel this week ahead of Thursday’s Thanksgiving celebrations, with airports in Minneapolis and Chicago reporting hundreds of delayed or canceled flights.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Self-driving trucks begin mail delivery test for U.S. Postal Service

The TuSimple self-driving truck is pictured in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters May 20, 2019. TuSimple/Handout via REUTERS

By Heather Somerville

(Reuters) – The U.S. Postal Service on Tuesday started a two-week test transporting mail across three Southwestern states using self-driving trucks, a step forward in the effort to commercialize autonomous vehicle technology for hauling freight.

San Diego-based startup TuSimple said its self-driving trucks will begin hauling mail between USPS facilities in Phoenix and Dallas to see how the nascent technology might improve delivery times and costs. A safety driver will sit behind the wheel to intervene if necessary and an engineer will ride in the passenger seat.

If successful, it would mark an achievement for the autonomous driving industry and a possible solution to the driver shortage and regulatory constraints faced by freight haulers across the country.

The pilot program involves five round trips, each totaling more than 2,100 miles (3,380 km) or around 45 hours of driving. It is unclear whether self-driving mail delivery will continue after the two-week pilot.

“The work with TuSimple is our first initiative in autonomous long-haul transportation,” USPS spokeswoman Kim Frum said. “We are conducting research and testing as part of our efforts to operate a future class of vehicles which will incorporate new technology.”

TuSimple and the USPS declined to disclose the cost of the program, but Frum said no tax dollars were used and the agency relies on revenue from sales of postage and other products. TuSimple has raised $178 million in private financing, including from chipmaker Nvidia Corp and Chinese online media company Sina Corp.

The trucks will travel on major interstates and pass through Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

The TuSimple self-driving truck is pictured in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters May 20, 2019. TuSimple/Handout via REUTERS

The TuSimple self-driving truck is pictured in this undated handout photo obtained by Reuters May 20, 2019. TuSimple/Handout via REUTERS

“This run is really in the sweet spot of how we believe autonomous trucks will be used,” said TuSimple Chief Product Officer Chuck Price. “These long runs are beyond the range of a single human driver, which means today if they do this run they have to figure out how to cover it with multiple drivers in the vehicle.”

The goal is to eliminate the need for a driver, freeing shippers and freight-haulers from the constraints of a worsening driver shortage. The American Trucking Associations estimates a shortage of as many as 174,500 drivers by 2024, due to an aging workforce and the difficulty of attracting younger drivers.

A new safety law requiring truck drivers to electronically log their miles has further constrained how quickly and efficiently fleets can move goods.

TuSimple’s tie-up with the USPS marks an achievement for the fledgling self-driving truck industry, and follows Swedish company Einride’s entry into freight delivery using driverless electric trucks on a public road, announced last week.

The developments contrast with retrenching efforts by robotaxi companies such as General Motors Co unit Cruise, Uber Technologies Inc and startup Drive.ai, which have stumbled in building self-driving cars that can anticipate and respond to humans and navigate urban areas, an expensive and technologically challenging feat.

Price said self-driving trucks have advantages over passenger cars, including the relative ease of operating on interstates compared with city centers, which reduces mapping requirements and safety challenges involving pedestrians and bicyclists.

(Reporting by Heather Somerville in San Francisco; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Largest-ever U.S. border seizure of fentanyl made in Arizona: officials

Packets of fentanyl mostly in powder form and methamphetamine, which U.S. Customs and Border Protection say they seized from a truck crossing into Arizona from Mexico, is on display during a news conference at the Port of Nogales, Arizona, U.S., January 31, 2019. Courtesy U.S. Customs and Border Protection/Handout via REUTERS

By David Schwartz

PHOENIX (Reuters) – U.S. border agents have seized 254 pounds (115 kg) of fentanyl that was stashed in a truck crossing into Arizona from Mexico, marking the largest single bust of the powerful opioid ever made at an American border checkpoint, officials said on Thursday.

The 26-year-old Mexican driver of a cucumber-toting tractor-trailer was arrested after agents on Saturday at the border station in Nogales discovered the fentanyl in a secret compartment, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said.

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 100 times stronger than morphine that can kill with a 2-milligram dose, has been blamed for fueling an opioid crisis in the United States. It gained notoriety after an overdose of the painkiller was deemed to have killed pop singer Prince in 2016.

The United States had a record 72,000 deaths from drug overdoses in 2017, with opioids responsible for most of those fatalities. President Donald Trump has declared opioid addiction a public health emergency.

The latest seizure in Nogales is the largest-ever confiscation of fentanyl by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, officials said in a statement.

The fentanyl was worth an estimated $3.5 million, based on valuation criteria of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Hugo Nunez, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said in an email.

The drugs were found after the truck was pulled over for a secondary inspection and drug-sniffing canines picked up an odor, Michael Humphries, the Nogales Area Port director, told reporters.

The driver, Juan Antonio Torres-Barraza, was charged in federal court in Tucson with two counts of drug possession with the intent to distribute.

An attorney for Torres-Barraza could not immediately be reached for comment.

Another 395 pounds (180 kg) of methamphetamine, worth about $1.1 million, also was confiscated from the truck, officials said.

“Fentanyl is trafficked into the United States largely from China and Mexico but it is not possible to determine which country is a bigger supplier, the DEA said in a report in October.

The U.S. Department of Justice, in a report last year to the U.S. Congress, has said the drug is primarily shipped to the United States from China through cargo containers or international mail. But Chinese fentanyl is sometimes sent to criminal groups in Mexico or Canada and smuggled across the border, the report said.

Last month, Mexican officials busted a fentanyl lab in Mexico City.

(Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Dan Grebler)

Crosses in Arizona desert mark where ‘American dream ended’ for migrants

Artist Alvaro Enciso makes a cross to commemorate the death of a migrants at his home in Tucson, Pima County, Arizona, U.S. September 9, 2018. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

By Jane Ross

SONORAN DESERT, Ariz. (Reuters) – The brightly-colored crosses that Alvaro Enciso plants in the unforgiving hard sand of Arizona’s Sonoran desert mark what he calls ‘the end of an American dream’ – the places where a migrant died after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

The bodies of nearly 3,000 migrants have been recovered in southern Arizona since 2000, according to the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner. Aid group Humane Borders, which sets up water stations along migrant trails, said that may be only a fraction of the total death toll, with most bodies never recovered.

Humane Borders, in partnership with the medical examiner’s office, publishes a searchable online map, which marks with a red dot the exact location where each migrant body was found.

It was that map and its swarms of red dots that inspired Enciso, a 73-year-old artist and self-described ‘reluctant activist,’ to start his project.

“I saw this map with thousands of red dots on it, just one on top of the other,” he told Reuters at his workshop in Tucson in September. “I want to go where those red dots (are). You know, the place where a tragedy took place. And be there and feel that place where the end of an American dream happened to someone,” he said.

The red dots of the map are represented by a circle of red metal Enciso nails to each cross, which he makes in his workshop. He decorates the crosses with small pieces of objects left behind by migrants, which he collects on his trips to the desert.

With temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius), Alvaro and his two assistants, Ron Kovatch and Frank Sagona, hauled two large wooden crosses, a shovel, jugs of water and a bucket of concrete powder through the scrubby desert south of Arizona’s Interstate 8, weaving through clumps of mesquite trees and saguaro cacti.

They used a portable GPS device to navigate to a featureless patch of rocky ground – the place where the remains of 40 year-old Jose Apolinar Garcia Salvador were found on Sept. 14, 2006, his birthplace and cause of death never recorded.

They planted another cross for a second person who was never identified, one of 1,100 recovered from Arizona’s deserts since 2000 whose names are unknown.

Enciso, who left Colombia in the 1960s to attend college in the United States, considers the crosses part art project and part social commentary. He would like to see an end to migrant deaths in the desert and a change in U.S. immigration laws.

“We cannot continue to be a land, a country that was created on the idea that we accept everybody here. We have broken the number one rule of what America is all about,” he said.

(Reporting by Jane Ross, Editing by Bill Tarrant and Rosalba O’Brien)