During the period of October 1, 2000 to April 30, 2013 the remains of 2,541 migrants who had crossed the U.S./Mexico border illegally, were recovered from Cochise, Pima and Yuma counties in Arizona, according to the AZ Daily Star Recovered Human Remains Project. In order to store the bodies, Pima County installed a second morgue refrigerator. They call it the Second Cooler.
That is also the name of a new documentary film, which shows this week at the Red Rocks Film Festival in southern Utah. There are approximately 12 million migrants in the United States illegally. “The Second Cooler” asks: Why do they come? Are they caught up in a system that is fully apparent neither to them nor us? Are U.S. citizens innocent bystanders? Are U.S. citizens caught up in the same system? Who benefits? We’ll talk with filmmaker Ellin Jimmerson and Jordan Bullard, who has worked with displaced migrants and who contributed music to the film.
