The humanitarian crisis on the US-Mexico border is a long-standing and evolving crisis in which nearly 8,000 deaths have been reported in the last two decades. These deaths are largely distributed across the Arizona-Mexico and Texas-Mexico border regions, where demographic trends for immigrants attempting to cross into the United States have shifted dramatically. The demographic change and volume of immigrants seeking shelter in the United States present new challenges for the forensic practitioners entrusted with the identification of individuals who lose their lives during the final segment of their journey. Within this border context, this study investigated how genetic variation inferred from forensically significant microsatellites can provide valuable information on regions of origin for unidentified remains at the group level. To explore how to mobilize these genetic data to inform identification strategies, the authors conducted a comparative genetic analysis of identified and unidentified immigrant cases from the Arizona- and Texas-Mexico contexts, as well as 27 other Latin American groups. Allele frequencies were utilized to calculate FST, and relationships were visually depicted in a multidimensional scaling plot. A Spearman correlation coefficient analysis assessed the strength and significance of population relationships, and an agglomerative clustering analysis assessed population clusters. Results indicate that Arizona-Mexico immigrants have the strongest relationship (>80%) with groups from El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, and an indigenous group from southern Mexico. Texas-Mexico immigrants have the strongest relationships (>80%) with groups from Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. These findings agree with, and are discussed in comparison with, previously reported demographic trends, population genetics research, and population history analyses. The authors emphasize the utility and necessity of coupling genetic variation research with a nuanced anthropological perspective for identification processes in the US-Mexico border context.

中文翻译：

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比较拉丁美洲移民的遗传变异：对亚利桑那州和德克萨斯州-墨西哥边境地区法医个案工作的影响。

美墨边境的人道主义危机是一场长期存在且不断演变的危机，在过去的二十年中，据报道有近 8,000 人死亡。这些死亡人数主要分布在亚利桑那州-墨西哥和德克萨斯州-墨西哥边境地区，试图进入美国的移民的人口趋势发生了巨大变化。在美国寻求庇护的人口结构变化和移民数量对法医从业人员提出了新的挑战，他们负责识别在旅途最后一段中丧生的个人。在此边界背景下，本研究调查了从法医显着微卫星推断的遗传变异如何为群体水平的未识别遗骸提供有关起源区域的有价值信息。为了探索如何调动这些遗传数据为识别策略提供信息，作者对来自亚利桑那州和德克萨斯州-墨西哥以及其他 27 个拉丁美洲群体的已识别和未识别移民病例进行了比较遗传分析。等位基因频率用于计算 FST，并在多维比例图中直观地描绘了关系。Spearman 相关系数分析评估了人口关系的强度和重要性，而凝聚聚类分析评估了人口集群。结果表明，亚利桑那-墨西哥移民与来自萨尔瓦多、危地马拉、墨西哥的群体以及来自墨西哥南部的土著群体的关系最为密切（>80%）。德州-墨西哥移民与伯利兹族群的关系最为密切（>80%），哥伦比亚、哥斯达黎加、萨尔瓦多、危地马拉、洪都拉斯和尼加拉瓜。这些发现与先前报道的人口趋势、人口遗传学研究和人口历史分析相一致，并与之进行了比较。作者强调了将遗传变异研究与细致入微的人类学视角相结合的美墨边境识别过程的实用性和必要性。