Heat and Human Rights

As applied anthropologists working at the intersection of human rights and extreme heat, we applaud The Dallas Morning News for highlighting artist Eliana Miranda’s powerful work on the weaponization of heat along the Texas-Mexico border. Texas has become the staging grounds for heat and the systematic violation of human rights.

Two-thirds of Texas prison facilities lack air conditioning, contributing to one of the highest heat-related prison mortality rates in the nation. In September 2023, the state enacted House Bill 2127, eliminating mandatory rest and water breaks for construction workers—despite Texas leading the nation in worker heat fatalities and being the deadliest state for Latino workers.

On the Texas-Mexico border, this brutality is even more explicit. During the record-breaking heat of 2023, medic troopers were ordered to deny water to migrants—an act tantamount to a death sentence. A whistleblower trooper who exposed this directive condemned it as crossing the line into inhumanity.

As climate change fuels more extreme heat and the border remains a battleground for political agendas, it is the poor, the desperate, the marginalized, and the voiceless who suffer. Ms. Miranda’s art is a compelling testament to this ongoing crisis—one that demands urgent policy reform.?

Rose Jones, PhD and Marsha Prior, PhD

Published in the Dallas Morning News, Sunday February 2, 2025