A Mexican woman who was attempting to illegally enter the United States was found dead on Monday, April 11, as new information about her death is released by authorities, including the state in which she was found by the border police.
Griselda Verduzco Armenta, a 31-year-old mother of two, was found stuck hanging upside down on the border wall in Douglas, Arizona. Her death was reportedly caused by her getting entangled in her climbing gear before being left to die by the people trying to smuggle her through the border, the New York Daily News reported.
“The coyotes tried and tried to get her down, but they couldn’t,” a relative said. “They left her there for their own safety, also, I think, so that (border patrol) wouldn’t arrest them. And they left her there hanging — she was still alive.”
Authorities that found her brought her to a hospital after getting her down, but she was pronounced dead when she arrived. Verduzco reportedly has two daughters, ages nine and one, and she wanted to go to the United States to look for better opportunities in her life, according to the Guardian.
“One says it’s better over there and everything,” the relative said. “But I say no.”
Verduzco is one of at least 7,000 who have died in their attempt to cross the border between Mexico and the United States since 1998. In 2020 alone, Arizona’s border patrol reported that over 227 bodies were found in the area separating the United States and Mexico.
Ricardo Pineda Albarrán, the Mexican consul in Douglas, Arizona, has condemned the smugglers who attempted to get her inside the United States illegally while calling them out for exploiting the needs of these people for their own financial gain.
“They fooled this woman and her group that it was safe,” he said. “Imagine how distraught this family is. We condemn this.”
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