Xavier Zaragoza/The Daily Dispatch

One day José Ezequiel Ríos Juarez was at work. The next day the 35-year-old Chihuahua man completely vanished.

Forty-three days later his wife Martha Lopez Ríos is still looking for him. She has gone from border town to border town in Arizona with his photograph, hoping someone has seen him-at the very least, help locate him.

"One night he was in a bar having an argument with three others," his wife Martha said. "The next day he did not show up to work."

Mexican authorities found his vehicle abandoned. His apartment was untouched as well as his bank account, she said.

She still clings to the hope that he came to one of the border towns in Arizona to look for work, she said as she held back her tears.

The first stop for people like Lopez Ríos is the Mexican Consulate in Douglas. There, she pinned his photograph next to the 20 or more black and white photographs of missing persons who may have crossed through this rough section of the U.S./Mexico border. And the ages of the missing range from the very young to the not so old.

Often the photos hang there for months or even years before they are removed.

Mexican Consul Miguel Escobar and his staff lend a hand by first calling the Border Patrol, who may have apprehended the person in question. If no luck there, he tries the Mexican police. From there it's a waiting game.

"It's an exchange of information and we follow up on leads," Escobar said.

A bit of information might lead him to a family in New York, who just might have another bit of information.

"At times we find the missing person," Escobar said. "At other times I have the misfortune of telling the families that the person was found dead."

At other times, information of a dead migrant comes to him first. He then has to track down the family by phone, usually at some remote village in Mexico. Again he has the uncomfortable experience of telling the family that their son or daughter, husband or wife, was found dead.

In November Border Patrol agents found north of Douglas the body of what authorities believe to be a 15-year-old girl.

No identification was found on the body and so the search continues, Escobar said.

"It will continue until we find some lead," he said.

For now she is Jane Doe

Ríos Lopez believes her husband is alive. In fact, they both had plans to come to the border one day to live and she hopes to live out that dream. In the meantime she will keep his photograph and show it around until she gets some answers.