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Immigrant rollover deaths result from combination of factors

Aug 9, 2006 10:44 AM EDT

A rollover crash that killed nine illegal immigrants and injured a dozen more followed a familiar and sometimes deadly formula: desperate immigrants, dangerously overloaded vehicles and drivers willing to take huge risks to avoid arrest.


Police in border counties said rollover accidents in vehicles carrying illegal immigrants are far from common, but when they do occur, the consequences can often involve multiple injuries and deaths.

As the government has put more agents and surveillance technology at the border in recent years, smugglers are turning to more remote areas, where their drivers are unfamiliar with the rugged terrain and can overturn vehicles with a sharp turn.

Smugglers frustrated with losing money in failed crossings also lead authorities on chases, either to avoid capture or slip away long enough to exit the vehicle so they can blend in with their customers and thus avoid a human trafficking prosecution.

"They are willing to drive 90 mph down the highway and hope the Border Patrol drops away," said Raymond Cobos, undersheriff for Luna County, N.M., which is part of that state's busiest immigrant smuggling corridor.

A sport utility vehicle packed with suspected illegal immigrants overturned in southwestern Arizona on Monday, killing nine people and injuring 12. The Border Patrol said it ranked as one of the worst single instances of immigrant motor-vehicle deaths.

The Chevy Suburban was carrying 21 people when the driver tried to circumvent a checkpoint on a highway more than 30 miles north of Yuma, officials said.

Five of the injured, including a pregnant woman, were hospitalized in critical condition in Phoenix, most with head trauma. Investigators said the passengers were likely stacked inside the Suburban at the time of the accident.

Adan Pineda, 20, the Mexican man identified by other survivors as having been the driver, was charged Tuesday with a count of transporting illegal aliens, said Russell Ahr, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Ahr said the investigation will determine whether more charges are warranted.


"This is just another example of the callousness of these persons (smugglers) when they deal with human beings like this, and we all are lamenting this," said Miguel Escobar Valdez, the Mexican consul in Yuma.

Before Monday's accident, 42 immigrants had died in vehicle accidents over the last 10 months nationwide while making border crossing attempts, a 16 percent rise from this time last year, the Border Patrol said.

No figures were available on the types of vehicle accidents that took the lives of immigrants.


At a time when overall border deaths are decreasing over this time last year, motor vehicle accidents now rank as the fourth-leading known cause of death during border crossings.

"It's a steady source of border deaths -- not a major one, but one that continues," said Nestor Rodriguez, director of the University of Houston's Center for Immigration Research, which has studied immigrant deaths since 1995.

Machele Headington, a spokeswoman at Yuma Regional Medical Center, where several of Monday's victims were treated, said the hospital has had at least one large group of patients from a rollover involving illegal immigrants each year since 2000.

"It's tragic because it's more and more common for us to see this," she said.

Tony Estrada, sheriff of Santa Cruz County in southern Arizona, said the increase he has seen in rollovers throughout the years was the result of a combination of tighter border security and smugglers singularly focused on turning a profit. Even so, Estrada said smugglers are solely to blame.

Illegal-immigrant advocates say the Border Patrol's enforcement strategy has moved crossings to more remote locations.

"Where they cross now is in more difficult terrain, and they go (to) more circuitous routes and they are exposed to the elements, or they take more chances in vehicles," said the Rev. Robin Hoover, founder of Human Borders, an Arizona group that maintains dozens of desert water stations for migrants.

Border Patrol spokesman Mario Martinez said smugglers are to blame for the shifting traffic. "We have a right to control who comes into this county legally and who doesn't," Martinez said.


Associated Press Writers Jacques Billeaud and Pauline Arrillaga contributed to this report from Phoenix.

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