government policy funnels migrants into the desert, creating a black hole of disappearance and death of historic proportions. Those bodies and fragmented sets of human remains have served as his window into the slow-motion disaster unfolding in the borderlands, one in which U.S. In the last six years, Warren has communed with the dead no fewer than 16 times in the desert outside Ajo, the tiny Arizona border town he calls home. When a person dies, Warren believes, some extra-physical element of them remains, dwelling in the place where they passed. The point, Warren says, is to take a moment to reflect or, as he puts it, “hold space.” It may not sound like much, but for him, this process and everything that attends to it is as sacred as anything one might find in a conventional house of God. He goes quiet, lowers himself to the earth, collects the dirt around him, and then lets the soil pour through his fingers. And so, after years of recoveries, the 36-year-old has developed a modest ritual for the grim encounters. Warren believes that these moments merit an acknowledgement of humanity. But for Warren, the process doesn’t end there. These elements are basic evidence-gathering. Scour the brush for more bones and pull together all the data pertinent to the investigation that local authorities will, in theory, initiate once they arrive. The earthly components are straightforward. Scott Warren has a checklist he goes through every time he finds a body in the desert.
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