"No matter how many years pass, it’s still a very painful trauma for us, so any option that presents itself is good," Carrillo Nevares had explained when she handed over her genetic material, believing Colibrí would notify her if any recovered remains ever matched her DNA. This promise, extended to hundreds of families across the U.S. and Latin America, now hangs in limbo, leaving a void of uncertainty and rekindling the anguish of ambiguous loss that haunts those whose loved ones vanish without a trace. From its inception, Colibrí played an instrumental role in bridging the gap between unidentified human remains found in the harsh borderlands and the families desperately seeking closure, facilitating approximately 500 successful identifications by 2022. However, since the fall of 2024, the organization’s partners have been unable to access the crucial database, obtain information from the laboratory storing the DNA samples, or proceed with identifications, effectively halting a vital humanitarian mission. The state of Arizona formally moved to dissolve Colibrí in December 2025 due to unfiled paperwork, intensifying the fears among forensic practitioners throughout the Borderlands: Is there any hope for salvaging this indispensable database, or is it lost forever?

The tragic genesis of Colibrí traces back to the escalating U.S. border enforcement policies of the 1990s, particularly the "Prevention Through Deterrence" strategy, which deliberately funneled migrants into remote, treacherous terrains like the vast and blistering Sonoran Desert. This policy, designed to make border crossings more dangerous and thus deter migration, instead transformed the desert into a graveyard. By the early 2000s, the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner (PCOME) in Tucson, Arizona, which serves three of the state’s four border counties, began to be overwhelmed by the influx of skeletal remains, presumed to be those of individuals who succumbed to the elements during their journeys. Concurrently, calls from anxious families searching for their vanished relatives flooded in, prompting forensic anthropologist Bruce Anderson at PCOME to start systematically compiling missing-persons reports. Recognizing the critical need for a more organized approach, cultural anthropologist Robin Reineke joined Anderson in 2006 to help structure these reports into a formal database, which they named the Missing Migrant Project.

The project quickly gained momentum, and by 2013, with hundreds of reports amassed, Reineke and co-founder William Masson, a software development expert, formally incorporated it as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Renamed the Colibrí Center for Human Rights in 2016, the organization expanded its capabilities by integrating DNA for identification purposes, hiring Mirza Monterroso, a forensic anthropologist from Guatemala, to lead its DNA program. Colibrí meticulously organized DNA collection events in cities with significant immigrant populations, offering a beacon of hope where relatives of missing migrants could provide cheek swabs as reference samples. To safeguard the families’ privacy and identities, Colibrí employees assigned unique, encrypted codes to each sample, which could only be decrypted through the organization’s secure database. These anonymized swabs were then dispatched to Bode, a private forensics laboratory based in Virginia. In parallel, the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner also regularly sent unidentified bone samples recovered from the borderlands to Bode for processing.

The two sets of DNA, from families and from recovered remains, were periodically cross-referenced by Bode. Upon a successful match, Bode would notify Colibrí, whose staff would then de-anonymize the sample, identify the corresponding family, and deliver the often-heartbreaking, yet ultimately clarifying, news. By 2022, this diligent process had facilitated an impressive number of identifications, offering solace to hundreds of families who had endured years of agonizing uncertainty. Despite its humanitarian successes, internal challenges began to mount. Robin Reineke, the organization’s founding director, stepped down in July 2019, citing the immense stress and personal toll the demanding work had taken on her. The organization subsequently navigated through two interim directors and by 2021 faced severe financial strain, prompting the board to explore a merger. The chosen partner was the Undocumented Migration Project (UMP), a nonprofit founded by Jason De León, who at the time also served as Colibrí’s board chair.

De León, a respected anthropologist, appeared to be a natural fit to lead Colibrí’s crucial work. He had joined the board in 2017 at Reineke’s invitation and his seminal 2015 book, The Land of Open Graves, had critically examined the devastating impact of U.S. border policy on migrant deaths, highlighting the responses of organizations like Colibrí. His UMP initiative supported both his academic research and a powerful traveling art exhibition, "Hostile Terrain 94," which visually underscored the human cost of border enforcement. From the board’s perspective, the merger offered an opportunity to strengthen Colibrí under the umbrella of a larger, more established entity, a sentiment echoed by Monterroso who saw it as a chance for "a bigger, more established and stronger organization (to take over)." De León himself, in an interview last spring, framed his involvement as a last-ditch effort to save the struggling nonprofit: "The organization was going to go under and so I took it on in hopes that I could save it."

Assuming the role of Colibrí’s executive director in 2022, De León’s leadership quickly generated friction. Monterroso reported immediate clashes over established protocols and ethical standards, raising serious concerns regarding the use of the sensitive database by a graduate student for research purposes, the presence of a documentary filmmaker at confidential DNA collection events, and what she perceived as delays in sending DNA samples for processing. Shortly after voicing these concerns to William Masson, Monterroso and a colleague were abruptly terminated. Masson, when contacted, declined to comment on the matter. These sudden staff changes deeply troubled Colibrí’s partner organizations, who relied on stable relationships and consistent data management. Anthropologist Kate Spradley, a professor at Texas State University and director of Operation Identification, which performs migrant identification work in South Texas, articulated the widespread concern: "The staff at Colibrí that we had built trust with had been fired with no explanation. This was alarming to us." Following the firings, Spradley reported significant difficulties in communicating with De León regarding the database’s ongoing usage and management.

The situation deteriorated further when, in October 2024, De León submitted a letter of resignation to Colibrí’s board. "I wanted to get as far away from this as humanly possible," he later told reporters, adding that "the biggest regret of my professional career was trying to save this organization," attributing his departure to "constant harassment and defamation that I have had to endure because of people who had been once associated with the organization who now blame me for many things." Within a week of De León’s resignation, Colibrí’s long-standing partners along the border experienced a complete loss of access to the database. Attempts to visit its web address were met with a message indicating the site was no longer hosted, effectively severing a critical lifeline. Without access to the database and Colibrí’s cooperation to de-anonymize samples, the ability to make new DNA matches ground to a halt.

"The family DNA is… just sitting there and not being compared to any of our unidentified human remains," lamented Spradley, highlighting the grim reality that "if nothing happens, we lose the complete possibility of being able to identify some individuals." Bruce Anderson’s team at the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office faced similar paralyzing challenges. "There’s a dozen or more cases that can’t be identified, and families can’t be told," he stated. "We think that these (identifications) will be resolved if we can just get access to those data and to those results." For the families whose hopes were anchored in Colibrí’s work, the disappearance was a devastating blow. "The database was something we trusted in that was going to help us search for our family," Carrillo Nevares expressed, her voice laced with pain. "They betrayed my trust."

Adding to the confusion, repeated attempts by Colibrí’s partner organizations to contact De León and certain board members went unanswered. The lines of responsibility for the database remained opaque, particularly since the promised merger between Colibrí and the Undocumented Migration Project had, in fact, never been legally completed. The necessary documents to formalize the merger were never filed with the Arizona Corporation Commission, the state agency overseeing companies and nonprofit organizations. Legally, Colibrí and UMP continued to operate as two distinct entities, registered in different states with separate tax identification numbers, creating a governance vacuum that proved detrimental. In October 2025, as concern deepened into despair, Spradley, Anderson, Reineke, and seven other prominent figures in humanitarian forensics and migrant advocacy dispatched a collective letter to De León, the boards of both Colibrí and the Undocumented Migration Project, and the director of the UCLA Department of Anthropology, where De León was employed.

"We find ourselves at a critical impasse," they wrote, pleading for assistance "in finding a way for thousands of missing person reports and genetic samples from families of missing migrants to be used in the manner promised to families at the time of collection." As of press time, Reineke confirmed that no response had been received. De León, contacted in February 2026, claimed ignorance, stating, "I did not (respond) because I have no knowledge of the database. I have no idea what (the board is) doing, what they’ve done, where the database is." This assertion, however, contradicts official records. Under federal law, the board of a nonprofit organization bears ultimate responsibility for its assets. Arizona Corporation Commission filings list Masson, De León, David Newstone, and Yolanda Magallanes as Colibrí’s most recent board members. De León disputes his continued board status, claiming he departed when he became executive director in 2022 and severed all ties in 2024. Yet, the organization’s legal filings continued to list him through the most recent submission in August 2025, which he dismissed as "just a mistake."

The legal status of Colibrí itself further complicates the matter. The Arizona Corporation Commission currently lists the organization as "inactive" due to an improper filing of its annual report. Despite a warning, Colibrí’s board failed to rectify the error, prompting the agency to administratively dissolve the organization on December 31, 2025. When reached by phone, board member David Newstone confirmed that Colibrí had "shut down" and chillingly added that "the database may be gone," concluding, "I think it’s already been destroyed." Another board member, Yolanda Magallanes, refused to comment, stating, "I don’t have to answer any of those questions" about the database’s status. Subsequent requests for comment to Colibrí’s board members went unanswered, leaving the fate of thousands of sensitive DNA samples shrouded in secrecy.

If the database has indeed been destroyed, it would represent a severe breach of federal nonprofit law. This law dictates that a tax-exempt organization’s assets – encompassing data and intellectual property – "must be permanently dedicated to an exempt purpose," and that in the event of dissolution, these assets must be distributed to another qualifying 501(c)(3) organization or to a state or local government entity. Colibrí’s own articles of incorporation reflect this legal obligation. Furthermore, the consent form signed by families providing their DNA samples explicitly stated that should the program cease, Colibrí "will notify all families whose samples still reside at Bode and provide them with available options at the time." Carrillo Nevares, among countless others, confirmed she received no such notification.

Legal experts consulted for this article suggest that given the current state and federal regulatory landscape, direct intervention by a government agency is unlikely. Any meaningful accountability or recovery would probably require a third party to initiate legal action, specifically by filing a formal request known as a Petition for Instructions with the Pima County Superior Court. Such a petition would compel the court to provide guidance on how the organization’s assets, including its crucial database, should be handled during dissolution. The forensic anthropologists and migrant advocates who authored the October letter stand ready to assume responsibility for the database should it still exist. "There are a half dozen organizations… that can take over the work of managing, protecting, and using this data the way it was intended to be used," they asserted, requiring only the board’s permission to proceed.

The potential loss of this data is not merely an administrative oversight; it is a devastating blow to a crucial humanitarian effort. "Colibrí has a moral obligation and ethical responsibility to make sure that these data… are accessible," emphasized Dan Martínez, a sociologist at the Binational Migration Institute and one of the letter’s signatories. "By not providing that access, you’re actively impeding the identification of these decedents and the reunification of the remains with their loved ones." For families still grappling with the agonizing uncertainty of missing relatives, the disappearance of Colibrí’s database extinguishes a vital source of hope for closure, extending their profound suffering indefinitely. "All the families saw (the DNA samples) as a door to a hope of being able to find our children — and what wouldn’t you do to find them?" Carrillo Nevares passionately stated, encapsulating the raw despair felt by many. "The objective of a humanitarian organization is to serve the community, not to say… ‘I changed my interests and I’m not even going to give you a reason why.’ That’s not right, humanly speaking." The fate of these invaluable records and the trust placed in their custodians remains a stark testament to the ongoing human cost of border policies and the fragile nature of humanitarian efforts in a complex, often indifferent, world.