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Border arrests surge in S.D. region


Increased enforcement in Arizona pushing illegal immigrants west
By Leslie Berestein
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
April 15, 2006

Arrests of illegal border crossers have increased more sharply in the San Diego region than anywhere else in the Southwest during the past six months, as stepped up enforcement in Arizona has pushed human smuggling traffic west.

According to the U.S. Border Patrol, apprehensions of illegal border crossers in the agency's San Diego sector are up 43 percent for fiscal year 2006, which began Oct. 1, compared with the same time period a year ago. Agents made 80,436 apprehensions between Oct. 1 and Wednesday.

During that period one year ago, 56,355 apprehensions were made. The number of people who were arrested is actually less, because some crossers are arrested several times before either slipping into the country or giving up.

March and April are typically the peak months for illegal border crossings.

“You can see it's a dramatic increase, and we are not even done with the year,” said Wendi Lee, a spokeswoman for the agency's San Diego sector, adding that the majority of the apprehensions are made in East County.

Border-crossing deaths and Border Patrol rescues are also on the rise in the region. There have been 76 migrant rescues since Oct. 1, compared with 42 for all of fiscal year 2005. Nine people are known to have died crossing the border here due to exposure, traffic accidents and drowning; eight were found dead the previous fiscal year.

In the Tucson sector, still the busiest in terms of human-smuggling traffic, year-to-date apprehensions are down 8 percent. Border enforcement there has tightened in recent years, with increased Border Patrol presence and surveillance technology.

As a result, smuggling traffic is spilling over the sides. The adjacent Yuma sector to the west, which saw apprehensions more than double between fiscal years 2003 and 2005, reports 22 percent more arrests so far this year compared with the year-ago period. The El Paso sector to the east, which includes New Mexico, has seen apprehensions increase 27 percent.

But the biggest spikes in smuggling traffic this fiscal year are in California. Apprehensions in the El Centro sector, which saw a steady decline in border-crossing arrests since 2000, are up 28 percent year-to-date, making for the second-sharpest increase behind San Diego.

Increased enforcement in Arizona is pushing traffic away from the Tucson sector, but so are Latin American media reports of ever-increasing deaths along hazardous desert crossing routes, said Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UC San Diego.

This could be contributing to the push west, he said. Even if the chance of getting caught in the heavily patrolled San Diego sector is higher, the risk of dying not as great.

“It's a rational way to reduce your risk,” Cornelius said. “Most of them are getting caught at least once in the San Diego sector, but it is a more attractive option for many. The smugglers have obviously made that calculation too, that people are more willing to be smuggled through the San Diego sector than through the Arizona desert.”

Nationwide, border-crossing arrests also have been on the upswing in recent years, and year-to-date figures indicate this trend is continuing. Between Oct. 1 and Wednesday, 647,591 arrests were made along the Southwest border versus 598,956 a year ago, an 8 percent increase.

These statistics are used by those on both sides of the ongoing national immigration debate to bolster their cause: Advocates of additional fencing and border enforcement point to more arrests as reason for increasing enforcement efforts, while those pushing for more comprehensive immigration reform see them as evidence that current border policies aren't working.

Some border observers wonder whether news of legislative negotiations in Washington, D.C., is encouraging more people to come. The Senate Judiciary Committee recently proposed a package that would include a path to legalization for many undocumented immigrants already working here.

“Just the mere fact that they are debating this stuff is giving hope to all these people in impoverished countries,” said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents agents.

Bonner said that in early 2004, after President Bush first discussed a guest-worker program, agents who spoke with border crossers reported some had been encouraged by the news.

Cornelius, who surveyed returned and prospective border crossers in Mexico last year, said that many had heard of Bush's proposal. However, he said, out of more than 700 people, only one said he had been inspired to go to the United States based on this news alone.

“The overwhelming majority would go one way or another,” Cornelius said.

The Rev. Luis Kendzierski, who directs the Casa del Migrante shelter in Tijuana, said yesterday that he hadn't heard any repatriated Mexican border crossers at the shelter talking about amnesty or a guest-worker program.

San Diego County was once the primary corridor for illegal immigration, but after the sector was fortified as part of Operation Gatekeeper in 1994, arrests here dropped from a high of 565,581 in fiscal year 1992 to 100,681 in 2002.

For the past two years, in response to increasing smuggling and deaths in the Tucson sector, the federal government has been beefing up border enforcement there. Meanwhile, apprehensions in the San Diego sector have slowly crept back up, with 138,608 arrests here in fiscal year 2004 and 126,913 in 2005.

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Leslie Berestein: (619) 542-4579; leslie.berestein@uniontrib.com