Sending bodies to the United States has become commonplace for Mexican funeral homes in Ciudad Juárez. At least twice a week, Jose Meléndez’s hearses cross the border. But the practice of sending the bodies of American tourists or seniors north has given way to a new phenomenon: the shipment of the remains of Mexicans to the United States.
Faced with violence plaguing the neighboring country, Mexican families in the United States are often afraid to return to their homeland, even to bury their loved ones.
In other cases, shipping bodies is simply a product of immigration.
"When the whole family lives in the United States, why bury the grandparent or the parents in Mexico if there is no one to visit the cemetery?" says Meléndez, funeral director of the Perches funeral home in Ciudad Juárez.
Located in the city with the highest murder rate in Mexico, Meléndez’s business has noticed another trend. In addition to requests to ship the bodies north, U.S. relatives of murder victims are asking the funeral home not to publicize where they are sending the remains.
“When they are cases of gunshots, the first thing they ask us is not to reveal the destination or the cemetery where they will be buried,” he said.
Mexicans whose remains are now resting in American cemeteries include the body of a young man who recently died at the hands of an armed squad at a birthday party with 15 other students in Ciudad Juárez, and the remains of a businessman who was shot outside his business in Chihuahua.

Meléndez, who operates one of the 14 funeral homes in Ciudad Juárez, says shipping bodies across the border is a growing business.
In the last three years, at least 124,000 residents of Ciudad Juárez have migrated to the United States, most of them to El Paso, Texas, according to the organization Observatory for Safety and Peaceful Co-existence.
More than 7,000 people have been killed in this city since 2008.
But when you’re dead, your legal status doesn’t matter, notes the funeral home director.
“They could be Mexican or Chinese. It doesn’t matter; they’ll cross the border in three days,” he says.
The shipping process takes three to 10 days and varies according to the client’s instructions, costing anywhere from $3,300 for the most economic service to nearly $5,000.
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