El Paso’s Heat Is Killing in Record Numbers. It May Only Get Worse – Inside Climate News

EL PASO—Retired Catholic priest Arturo Bañuelas leaned into the microphone as he urged county commissioners to do something about the growing crisis of migrants dying in the desert just miles from the courthouse where he stood.

“These deaths are occurring right here,” Bañuelas said, wearing his white clerical collar under a black shirt and jacket during a January commission meeting. “Close to our homes, churches and community. We cannot turn away.”

El Paso was the most deadly sector of the U.S.-Mexico border in 2024. And it’s not just migrants who are succumbing to extreme heat. Temperatures are rising faster in El Paso than in almost any other U.S. city. And a record 39 deaths were attributed directly or indirectly to heat in El Paso County during 2024.

Among the victims were a 75-year-old aficionado of Lowrider cars found in his trailer, a 39-year-old Army veteran out on a hike and a 27-year-old Guatemalan man who perished after crossing the border.

The previous record was set in 2023, when the heat directly or indirectly killed 26 people, according to state data. These were the two hottest years on record in El Paso. Heat-related illnesses also increased significantly.

Despite these alarming totals, neither the city nor the county of El Paso shares with the public weekly data on heat-related illnesses that is available from the state. El Paso’s health information exchange denied a request from Inside Climate News for the data it collects. Neither the city nor county has released the results of any investigations into the rapid increase in heat deaths. And, unlike other heat-afflicted cities like Phoenix and counties like Miami-Dade, El Paso has no staff positions dedicated to heat mitigation. El Paso relies instead on an unfunded high-heat task force made up of volunteers and government employees—all while the Trump administration has cut $3.5 million in public health grants to the city this year. 

The day Bañuelas addressed the county commissioners, January 13, the elected officials voted unanimously in favor of a resolution recognizing the crisis of migrant deaths. It was a rare public acknowledgement of the rising death toll. But the vote did not commit the commissioners to any specific actions

Inside Climate News reviewed these two deadly years and found that migrants, the elderly and hikers are the most vulnerable to the heat. Contributing factors to heat deaths, such as whether someone had access to air conditioning, were not always included in public records, Inside Climate News found, limiting officials’ ability to see trends and develop plans to save lives. 

Climate change is increasing the risks of extreme heat. The average annual temperature in El Paso has increased 5.7 degrees Fahrenheit since 1970, according to the nonprofit Climate Central.

Statewide, heat mortality has trended upward in the last decade. Two thousand twenty-three was Texas’ deadliest year on record, with 334 deaths directly attributed to heat. In 2024, heat killed 171 people and contributed to an additional 281 deaths, according to preliminary state data. 

The increase in migrant deaths coincided with an increase in the number of people attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years. The number of migrants and asylum seekers arriving at the border declined in 2024 and dropped further this year. So far in 2025, fewer heat deaths have been reported than in the previous two years. But local humanitarian organizations hope public officials will learn from the record-setting years of 2023 and 2024.

Aimée Santillán, policy director at the Hope Border Institute, a faith-based human rights center in El Paso, said that the recent past showed that “massive amounts of deaths” can occur in the area.

“We saw that’s possible,” Santillán said. “We should do everything we can to prevent that from ever happening again.”

As the Temperature Goes Up, So Does the Risk

For Dr. Brian Elmore, working as an emergency medical physician at El Paso’s University Medical Center (UMC) was a crash course in the many ways migrants can be injured or die at the border. In addition to pulling his shifts at the hospital, Elmore co-founded Clínica Hope with the Hope Border Institute to provide medical care to migrants across the border in Juárez. 

Elmore recounted in the Texas Observer the story of a woman who was found unconscious in the desert, her body temperature 107 degrees, and rushed to the hospital. She never regained consciousness and died several days later.

“All of these deaths are avoidable, perpetuated by the cruelty of our policies,” he wrote of migrant deaths at the border. “But the heat deaths in particular seem so senseless.”

Elmore told Inside Climate News that he often treated patients who had spent days walking in hot weather or waiting at the border fence. “Climate change and increasing militarization are combining to create dangerous conditions for migrants,” he said. 

Doctors like Elmore are seeing the deadly impacts of heat firsthand. But more data is needed to bring the bigger picture into focus. In response, Inside Climate News compiled and analyzed records for the first time from UMC, the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS), El Paso’s Medical Examiner’s Office and the city’s fire department. 

A disproportionate number of heat deaths occur in El Paso County compared to its population. With just under 900,000 people, the county had nearly as many deaths directly attributed to heat in 2024 as Harris County, home to nearly 5 million. 

Inside Climate News was only able to identify individuals for whom autopsies were conducted. Autopsies are usually done for unexplained deaths or deaths that did not occur under medical supervision. The identities of individuals who died from the heat in Texas and did not receive autopsies are not public record.

Inside Climate News identified 26 people who died in the heat during 2023 and 2024 in El Paso County. Nineteen were migrants from countries including Guatemala, Mexico and Ecuador. Seven were U.S. residents. The youngest victim was 19 and the oldest 88. All but two of the victims were Hispanic. 

Several patterns emerged among the U.S. residents who died from the heat. From 2022 through 2024, one male hiker died each year in El Paso’s Franklin Mountains. Two of the hikers were visiting El Paso from out of state at the time of their deaths. The third was originally from the Rio Grande Valley and had moved to El Paso.

Others who succumbed to the heat were two elderly men who lived alone. One woman died inside her vehicle. A man died walking on the highway after his vehicle broke down. One woman’s death was attributed to methamphetamines, with heat and dehydration listed as contributing factors. 

Hot temperatures are nothing new in El Paso. But climate change is driving the region to new extremes. A 2021 report by the Texas state climatologist found that over the previous 45 years, El Paso County had seen the second biggest increase in average temperatures out of the state’s 254 counties.

The temperature surpassed 100 degrees on 70 days during 2023, including a 44-day streak in June and July. Those were both records. 

These extreme temperatures offer a glimpse of what’s to come. The state climatologist projected that the number of 100-degree days in Texas will nearly double by 2036 compared to this century’s first two decades. 

Task Force Addresses Extreme Heat

“I’m coming to you today with really bad news,” Graciela Ortiz said at a fire station in southeast El Paso on June 5. 

First responders, reporters and public officials were assembled for the annual news conference held by El Paso’s Extreme Weather Task Force. Ortiz announced that heat deaths had gone up, again, in 2024. 

“What we’re realizing now is, it’s not just the vulnerable, but it’s everybody,” she said. “Our goal is zero deaths.”

The task force coordinates efforts between city agencies, nonprofits and emergency services to connect residents to resources like utility payment assistance and cooling centers. Ortiz joined the task force, which she now coordinates, in 2009. 

“All I want is for people to understand that heat does kill,” Ortiz said in an interview. “And there are places to get help if you need it.”

In her day job as a program specialist at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, Ortiz fields calls from seniors around El Paso. She hears from elderly residents who turn off their air conditioning overnight to save on utility bills, even when nighttime temperatures exceed 90 degrees. Others call in asking for help because they can’t afford to fix a broken unit. 

El Paso’s task force relies on donations to purchase box fans that are distributed for free to residents.

“We have a great community that works hard together,” Ortiz said. “People donate. We have no budget whatsoever. But we figure it out.”

El Paso’s population is over 80 percent Hispanic. One in five seniors lives in poverty, double the national average. Many residents struggle to keep up with electric bills during the summer. Rates of chronic health conditions, including diabetes and heart disease, which the heat exacerbates, are higher than average in the city. 

Heat has long been deadly in El Paso. The city’s all-time temperature record was set on June 30, 1994, when the mercury hit 114 degrees. That heat wave claimed at least one life, when a 40-year-old construction worker perished. 

A string of deaths in the summer of 2002 spurred the city to create the Extreme Weather Task Force. That summer 10 people died of heat stroke, and heat contributed to an additional 11 deaths. A presentation from the task force later described it as “a state of crisis” and said “something had to be done.” 

The number of deaths began to decline. Between 2005 and 2021, El Paso recorded fewer than 10 direct heat deaths a year. Until now.

“It just keeps growing,” Ortiz said. “What are we doing wrong? I don’t know.”

An 85-year-old woman became El Paso County’s first heat death of 2025, just a week after the press conference. She was found sitting outside her modest home in the town of Canutillo. On that day, June 12, the temperature hit 103 degrees.

“You Need to Know the Size of the Problem”

Extreme heat is the most deadly weather-related hazard in the United States. But data on its impacts can be hard to access. Record-keeping on migrant deaths at the border is also notoriously spotty.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration partnered with local agencies and universities to host a 2016 workshop in El Paso on the public health risks of extreme heat. The attendees identified “a critical need” to quantify vulnerabilities in the region and recommended collecting data on heat-related illnesses and historical information on heat-related deaths. Nearly a decade later, however, little has changed.

The city of El Paso said it does not track heat-related illnesses. The city referred Inside Climate News to El Paso’s nonprofit health information exchange, PHIX, for that data. However, PHIX declined Inside Climate News’ request to access the data because the organization is set up to fulfill requests from health care professionals and academic researchers. 

Several other county and city health departments in Texas maintain dashboards of heat-related illness using data from DSHS. Dallas and Tarrant (Fort Worth) counties make weekly updates to heat-related illness dashboards during the hot season. The San Antonio health department posts the weekly data for Bexar County. Harris County (Houston) and Travis County (Austin) also publish reports on both heat deaths and illnesses. 

El Paso officials have also been reluctant to discuss how heat deaths are counted. Inside Climate News and the Texas Tribune reviewed excess deaths data and found that heat deaths are likely undercounted in Texas. The El Paso Medical Examiner’s Office declined interview requests for this story. Eventually, chief medical examiner Dr. Mario Rascon answered questions in writing. 

Rascon referenced the College of American Pathologists to explain the office’s protocol to identify heat deaths. If someone with heart disease dies of a heart attack after shoveling snow, he said, the death is not attributed to “environmental cold exposure.” 

Rascon applied this logic to say that an individual who died of a heart attack after physical strain in hot weather would likely be considered a natural death, not an accidental heat death. He said that determination could change if there was evidence that the person had an “intrinsic inability” to get out of the heat.

Contributing factors to heat deaths were not always included in public records reviewed by Inside Climate News. For example, after a 75-year-old Hispanic man was found dead at his home in northeast El Paso, the autopsy noted that it was 85 degrees inside his trailer at 8:23 p.m. The high temperature that day, June 11, 2024, was 102 degrees. Three pets were found dead with the man. 

His death was attributed to the heat. But neither the autopsy nor the police incident report say whether the trailer had air conditioning or if the unit was turned on. No one seemed to ask why it was so dangerously hot in the home. 

Researchers from the University of Texas School of Public Health found, in a 2016 paper, that heat waves were linked to increased risk of death among the elderly in Texas between 2006 and 2011. The correlation was strongest in El Paso County, where the researchers found that the risk of elder mortality was 4.70 times greater during heat waves, compared to days with more normal temperatures. 

“Understanding these patterns of who is dying from the heat is extremely important if you want to reduce heat-related deaths,” said Gregory Wellenius, an environmental health professor at the Boston University School of Public Health.

He gave the example of Maricopa County, Arizona, where officials found that many who died in the heat had broken air conditioners. This helped the county focus its efforts on paying to repair air conditioning units for qualifying residents. Phoenix has also restricted access to certain hiking trails on days with extreme heat warnings, which has reduced the number of rescues first responders have to make during the hottest months. The El Paso trails where three hikers have died are in the Franklin Mountains State Park, which remains open during extreme heat warnings.

Maricopa County publishes an annual report with in-depth analysis of all heat-related deaths. El Paso County does not.

“That information is very useful as you’re trying to intervene and help people,” Wellenius said. “You need to know the size of the problem.” 

Rose Jones, a Dallas medical anthropologist, advocates for evidence-based public health responses to extreme heat. But she said data that can help communities understand heat risk is under threat as federal scientists are fired or resign under the Trump administration. The national heat strategy, published in 2024 by the interagency National Integrated Heat Health Information System, was taken offline this year. 

Jones said local government and community-based organizations will need to step up as the federal government rolls back programs.

“We’re moving into more and more troubled territory,” she said. “Without the data you can’t really tell the story.”

“Show Us the Data”

Ana Fuentes, the director of Amanecer People’s Project in El Paso, said that local residents may underappreciate the heat’s true impact.

“As El Pasoans—as desert people—we think we’re tough,” she said. “We might not realize how much of a health crisis this is.”

That hit home when Amanecer, a climate justice organization, was staffing an informational table at a Coldplay concert on June 14. One member started showing signs of heat exhaustion after standing out in the triple digit weather.

Fuentes said El Paso should tabulate health impacts of the heat. “We need the city and the county to do their part to show us the data, to educate us on really how much of a problem it is,” she said.

It’s not only heat deaths that have gone up. In 2020, 90 people visited emergency departments in El Paso with heat-related illnesses, according to DSHS. That number shot up to 247 and 213 people in 2023 and 2024, respectively. Not all institutions report this data to the state, so this is likely an undercount.

Dr. Jose Burgos, UMC medical director of internal medicine, said the dry desert heat can be deceptive. With low humidity, people sweat less, which makes it harder for the body to regulate its temperature. Dizziness and headaches, some of the signs of heat exhaustion, can be mistaken for other ailments.

“Once the symptoms hit, people don’t even recognize what’s happening,” Burgos said.

UMC saw an increase in the number of patients discharged after treatment for heat-related illnesses in the last two years. In 2022, the hospital discharged 39 patients who had been treated for these ailments, according to data provided in a public information request. That went up 70 percent in 2023, to 67 patients. 

“UMC’s data showed that temperature is a key contributor to heat-related illnesses, but other factors may also influence the data,” said Estefanía Morgan, UMC director of public affairs. “For example, behaviors changed during the pandemic when there were fewer large outdoor events, which can impact the number of heat exhaustion cases we see.”

The El Paso Fire Department responded to 110 heat-related emergencies during 2023, in which 92 patients were transported to a hospital. Those numbers declined in 2024, to 60 heat-related emergencies and 49 hospital transports.

Veerinder “Vinny” Taneja, director of the El Paso Public Health Department, said the region is experiencing “longer and more intense heat waves.” 

Taneja said the city’s strategy, for now, is public education. The task force encourages the “buddy system” for residents to check in on friends, family and neighbors. Cooling centers have extended their hours. 

Still, Taneja expressed interest in testing new strategies. 

“I do look at what those other health departments and other communities are doing,” he said. “The issue has been we are in a declining cycle of funding… But if there is funding that comes upon us, we would definitely like to get some more activities going on.”

More than half of the department’s funding comes from grants, according to El Paso Matters, which means the federal cuts hit particularly hard. 

Funding has also been on Graciela Ortiz’s mind this summer. The extreme weather task force coordinator said she is preparing for federal budget cuts that could impact social services in El Paso for the populations most vulnerable to the heat. 

“Our budget [year] ends Aug. 31,” she said. “We’re bracing ourselves.”

Ortiz said that fewer people are reaching out this year for assistance to cope with extreme heat. She worries that some residents aren’t seeking help because of fear of immigration enforcement. 

“Deaths in Our Backyard”

The majority of deaths that Inside Climate News was able to identify were of migrants from Latin America. Heightened, militarized immigration enforcement has pushed migrants to cross the border in more remote locations. Of the migrants who died in El Paso County in 2023, over half were women. Other reports have found that more women are perishing in their attempts to cross the border. 

Migrant deaths in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s El Paso sector, which includes New Mexico, hit record highs in 2023 and 2024, according to a Texas Tribune investigation. During 2024, the remains of 168 migrants were recovered in the El Paso sector. Many, though not all, died of heat exposure. 

In 2024 Mexico increased its immigration enforcement efforts and the Biden administration restricted access to asylum at the border. The number of migrants reaching the border began to drop. Upon entering office, President Donald Trump issued a proclamation blocking people from seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border and deployed National Guard troops to the border. The number of migrants apprehended at the border reached an all-time low in July.

Initial records from the medical examiner’s office during June and July so far show a decrease in the number of heat deaths in El Paso compared to 2023 and 2024. This could be linked to fewer people attempting to cross the border or to the slightly lower temperatures this year. Complete data from DSHS will not be available until 2026.

The low numbers of border crossings may not last; earlier this month U.S. border agents were directed to stop deporting migrants under the asylum ban following a federal court order.

The Hope Border Institute has refocused its efforts to work with migrants on the border. Clínica Hope’s work is on pause as the medical needs of the migrant population have shifted. 

“Enforcement measures are not going to work forever,” said Santillán, the organization’s policy director. “People who need to find safety are going to try and find it anyway that they can.”

As the needs in El Paso evolve, Santillán said that local officials and emergency responders should improve coordination to respond to migrants in distress. She said there should be more publicity about the threat posed by heat and a unified strategy between agencies. In comments to commissioners in January, she urged the county to collect more data on the problem through the medical examiner’s office. 

“We’re seeing all these deaths in our backyard,” she said. “We know the causes, but we just live with them.”