Mexican families searching for missing relatives unite to draw attention to their plight

TEPOTZOTLAN, Mexico (AP) — Dozens of women and men searched a garbage dump outside Mexico’s capital Friday looking for signs of missing loved ones, working without the protection of authorities as part of a nationwide effort to raise the profile of those who risk their lives to find others.

Under a blazing sun and amid foul odors, they picked through the dump and other sites in the town of Tepotzotlan in Mexico state, which hugs Mexico City on three sides.

Hundreds of collectives across Mexico are participating in search operations this weekend to draw attention to the work they are left to do without official help in a country with nearly 100,000 people registered as missing.

The work is dangerous. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has documented nine cases since 2019 of women who were slain over their work hunting for missing relatives. Other organizations in Mexico have recorded even more cases.

The groups participating this weekend decided to forgo government protection as a way to protest authorities’ frequent indifference to disappearances.

“We feel abandoned by the state to respond to this situation, which is a real national emergency,” some 250 collectives making up the National Unification of Searching Families said in a statement.

Juan Carlos Trujillo Herrera has been searching for four brothers who disappeared in Guerrero and Veracruz states more than a decade ago. He said uniting search collectives across Mexico raises consciousness.

“With the state, without the state and beyond the state, no one has to stop” searching, he said.

In the work at the dump Friday, searchers used a backhoe as well shovels and picks to dig through debris. Metal rods were pushed into ground and then sniffed for the scent of death.

While disappearances have plagued Mexico for decades, the phenomenon exploded in 2006 when authorities declared war on the drug cartels. For years, the government looked the other way as violence increased and families of the missing were forced to remain silent or carefully search for their relatives.

The administration of current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has invested in creating a national database of the missing and the National Search Commission for Missing Persons.

But he drew the ire of many families and advocates last year by ordering a recount of the missing. It was seen as an effort to lower Mexico’s embarrassingly high total and it did, moving from some 113,000 last year to a revised total of just short of 100,000.

A relative searches for missing loved ones in a clandestine grave in Zumpango, Mexico, Friday, April 19, 2024. Hundreds of collectives searching for missing loved ones fanned out across Mexico on Friday as part of a coordinated effort to raise the profile of efforts that are led by the families of the tens of thousands of missing across Mexico without support from the government. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

A relative searches for missing loved ones in a clandestine grave in Zumpango, Mexico, Friday, April 19, 2024. Hundreds of collectives searching for missing loved ones fanned out across Mexico on Friday as part of a coordinated effort to raise the profile of efforts that are led by the families of the tens of thousands of missing across Mexico without support from the government. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

A relative searches for missing loved ones in a clandestine grave in Zumpango, Mexico, Friday, April 19, 2024. Hundreds of collectives searching for missing loved ones fanned out across Mexico on Friday as part of a coordinated effort to raise the profile of efforts that are led by the families of the tens of thousands of missing across Mexico without support from the government. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Relatives search for their missing loved ones in a clandestine grave in Zumpango, Mexico, Friday, April 19, 2024. Hundreds of collectives searching for missing loved ones fanned out across Mexico on Friday as part of a coordinated effort to raise the profile of efforts that are led by the families of the tens of thousands of missing across Mexico without support from the government. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

A relative stands by as a mechanical shovel removes earth from a clandestine grave during a search for missing loved ones, in Tepotzotlán, Mexico, Friday, April 19, 2024. Hundreds of collectives searching for missing loved ones fanned out across Mexico on Friday as part of a coordinated effort to raise the profile of efforts that are led by the families of the tens of thousands of missing across Mexico without support from the government. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

A relative stands by as a mechanical shovel removes earth from a clandestine grave during a search for missing loved ones, in Tepotzotlán, Mexico, Friday, April 19, 2024. Hundreds of collectives searching for missing loved ones fanned out across Mexico on Friday as part of a coordinated effort to raise the profile of efforts that are led by the families of the tens of thousands of missing across Mexico without support from the government. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

A relative joins in a search for missing loved ones in Zumpango, Mexico, Friday, April 19, 2024. Hundreds of collectives searching for missing loved ones fanned out across Mexico on Friday as part of a coordinated effort to raise the profile of efforts that are led by the families of the tens of thousands of missing across Mexico without support from the government. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Maria Herrera, center, searches for her disappeared children, two who went missing in Guerrero in 2008 and two who went missing in Veracruz in 2010, in Zumpango, Mexico, Friday, April 19, 2024. Hundreds of collectives searching for missing loved ones fanned out across Mexico on Friday as part of a coordinated effort to raise the profile of efforts that are led by the families of the tens of thousands of missing across Mexico without support from the government. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Relatives search for their missing loved ones in a clandestine grave in Zumpango, Mexico, Friday, April 19, 2024. Hundreds of collectives searching for missing loved ones fanned out across Mexico on Friday as part of a coordinated effort to raise the profile of efforts that are led by the families of the tens of thousands of missing across Mexico without support from the government. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Relatives search for their missing loved ones in a clandestine grave in Zumpango, Mexico, Friday, April 19, 2024. Hundreds of collectives searching for missing loved ones fanned out across Mexico on Friday as part of a coordinated effort to raise the profile of efforts that are led by the families of the tens of thousands of missing across Mexico without support from the government. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

PHOENIX (AP) — A judge on Friday rejected an effort by GOP lawmakers to use the term “unborn human being” to refer to a fetus in the pamphlet that Arizona voters will use to weigh a ballot measure that would expand abortion access in the state.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Whitten said the wording the legislative council suggested is “packed with emotion and partisan meaning” and asked for what he called more “neutral” language. The measure aims to expand abortion access from 15 weeks to 24 weeks – the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb.

It would allow exemptions to save the woman’s life or to protect her physical or mental health. It would also prevent the state from adopting or enforcing laws that would forbid access to the procedure.

Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma, who is a co-chair of the legislative council, said the group will appeal the court’s decision to the state Supreme Court.

“The ruling is just plain wrong and clearly partisan,” said Toma, a Republican.

Aaron Thacker, communications director for Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, noted that the final decision on the ballot itself remains in the air.

“There’s still a lot of scenarios at play," he said. "Even after the secretary certifies the signatures, the courts have to decide if counties can put it on the ballot or not."

Arizona for Abortion Access, the organization leading the ballot measure campaign, sued the council earlier this month over the suggested language and advocated for the term “fetus,” which the council rejected.

Attorney General Kris Mayes wrote in a motion to submit an amicus brief that “fetus" and “pregnancy” are both neutral terms that the council could adopt.

“It’s incredibly important to us that Arizona voters get to learn more about and weigh our measure in objective and accurate terminology,” said Dawn Penich, communications director for the abortion access group.

Democrats have centered abortion rights in their campaigns in this year’s elections. Organizers in five other states have also proposed similar measures that would codify abortion access in their state constitutions: Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada and South Dakota.

Arizona organizers submitted more than double the amount of signatures needed for the measure to appear on the ballot.

FILE - Arizona abortion-rights supporters deliver over 800,000 petition signatures to the capitol to get abortion rights on the November general election ballot July 3, 2024, in Phoenix. A judge on Friday, July 26, rejected an effort by GOP lawmakers to use the term “unborn human being” to refer to a fetus in the pamphlet that Arizona voters will use to decide on a ballot measure that would expand abortion access in the state. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)