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Investigations into Mexico's nearly 100,000 disappearances are painfully insufficient, with roughly 52,000 unidentified people in morgues and cemeteries and the resource-starved forensic lab in the state capital Ciudad Victoria unable to keep up with the unending tide of bodies, reports the Associated Press. In addition, according to recent data from Mexico's federal auditor, of more than 1,600 investigations into disappearances by authorities or cartels opened by the attorney general's office, none made it to the courts in 2020.

The phenomenon of Mexico's disappearances exploded in 2006 when the government declared war on the drug cartels, but it wasn't until 2018 that a law passed, laying the legal foundations for the government to establish the National Search Commission. The national commission, which was supposed to have 352 employees this year, still has just 89, while a state commission that oversees one of the largest areas of violence has 22 positions budgeted, but has only filled a dozen slots due to difficulty finding applicants who pass background checks. According to the Tamaulipas state forensic service, some 15 "extermination sites" have been found, mostly by family members who follow up leads themselves with or without the support and protection of authorities. It can take months for remains to be cleaned and processed, and even if forensic technicians manage to extract DNA, identification isn't assured. It could be years before the profile is added to one of the national databases. In 2020, the federal auditor said that that system had only 7,600 registered disappeared and 6,500 registered dead.