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Increased Security on US Mexico Border Leads to more Immigrant Deaths

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Increased Security on US Mexico Border Leads to more Immigrant Deaths

April 23, 2009 by Jennifer Brandt  
Filed under Immigration, Violence Reduction

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TUCSON - Illegal immigrant deaths are continuing to rise along the U.S.-Mexico border despite a nearly 25 percent drop in Border Patrol arrests in the past six months that suggests far fewer people are entering the country unlawfully.

The number of migrant deaths along the roughly 2,000-mile border increased by nearly 7 percent between Oct. 1 and March 31, the first six months of the 2009 federal fiscal year. The biggest increase occurred in the patrol’s Tucson sector, the nation’s busiest corridor for illegal immigrants coming through Mexico.

In all, the remains of 128 people were found, compared to 120 in the same six-month period the year before, according to just-released Border Patrol statistics.

Yet apprehensions of people crossing illegally from Mexico into Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California dropped to less than 265,000 - a decrease of more than 24 percent from the comparable period a year ago and 37 percent from the first six months of the federal fiscal year that began on Oct. 1, 2006. The number of arrests is generally considered an indication of how many people are illegally crossing the border into the U.S. The more apprehensions, the more people are thought to be coming.

Migrants rights groups say there’s a direct correlation between the number of deaths and increased enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“What we’ve seen is that the death rate has gone up even though the number of people crossing has gone down, the direct result of more agents, more fencing and more equipment,” said the Rev. Robin Hoover, founder of the Tucson-based group Humane Borders, which provides water stations for migrants crossing the southern Arizona desert. “The migrants are walking in more treacherous terrain for longer periods of time, and you should expect more deaths.”

Tucson sector Border Patrol spokesman Omar Candelaria said it was hard to say why deaths increased in his area, especially because they’re not being found in summer, when most deaths occur.

Hoover said he’s measured where the bodies are being found, and the average death locations are farther and farther away from roads than in previous years.

“So they’re going around the fences, the technology and where the agents are,” he said. “And the farther you walk from a safe place, the more likely a broken ankle becomes a death sentence.”

Source: Associated Press