This project examining the perilous crossings of illegal immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico border was made possible by a World Affairs Journalism Fellowship from the International Center for Journalists in Washington, D.C.

For three weeks last summer, Cox News Service writer J.B. Smith traveled to three towns in Mexico to interview families of dead illegal immigrants identified in Waco by Baylor University forensic DNA scientist Lori Baker.

He also spent five days in September visiting southern Arizona, where all of those immigrants died. He traveled into the desert with Border Patrol agents and volunteers from a locally based humanitarian group and visited the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Smith continued his research well into December, conducting interviews with anti-illegal immigration activists and policy-makers, including the head of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and the Center for Immigration Studies.

Beginning Sunday, Jan. 13, and running through Wednesday, Jan. 16, this series explores the causes and effects of illegal immigration through the stories of real people on both sides of the border.