Thread: Border deaths rise despite dip in crossings

Border deaths rise despite dip in crossings

TUCSON, Arizona (AP) — Illegal immigrant deaths along the U.S.-Mexico border have risen in the past six months despite a nearly 25% drop in arrests by the Border Patrol, according to patrol statistics.

The number of migrant deaths along the roughly 2,000-mile border increased by nearly 7% between Oct. 1, 2008, and March 31, 2009, though apprehensions of people crossing illegally from Mexico into Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California decreased in the same period from a year ago, the patrol said.

Migrant rights groups said the number of deaths directly correlated to increased enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The rise in deaths was "the direct result of more agents, more fencing and more equipment" the Rev. Robin Hoover, founder of the Tucson-based Humane Borders, which provides water stations for migrants crossing the southern Arizona desert, said Tuesday. "The migrants are walking in more treacherous terrain for longer periods of time, and you should expect more deaths."

The remains of 128 people were found during the six-month period, compared to 120 in the same period a year earlier, the patrol said. But apprehensions of those crossing illegally from Mexico into the United States decreased more than 24% compared to the number of arrests from the same period a year ago.

The number of arrests is generally considered an indication of how many people are illegally crossing the border, with increasing apprehensions indicating more crossings into the country. Fewer than 265,000 arrests were made between October and March, the patrol said.

Dr. Bruce Parks, the medical examiner in southern Arizona's Pima County, said many of the bodies found were skeletal remains, indicating that some deaths could have taken place "more than a year or two" ago, when more people had been crossing.

But Border Patrol spokesman Mar Candelabra, who represents the Tucson sector that saw a 30% increase in deaths from the same period a year before, said it was hard to say why deaths increased, especially because the bodies were not found in the summer when desert heat is often fatal.
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These deaths are all avoidable.

All they have to do is STOP VIOLATING U.S. IMMIGRATION LAWS.

But apparently many people are just to stupid to figure this out.

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-152668.html
this is a a duplicate listing or similiar article

How do they know it wasn't as a result of alot of the murdering going on? Gangs, cartels etc. Just because it's at the border, doesn't mean they were nice future tomatoe pickers on their way here......plus I agree, there's one real easy way to end this problem......quit comming illegally. If your entrance and other activities were legal and on the up and up....we have legal entry points, use them.

I would say the reason for the apprehensions are down is this area is due to agents being relocated to higher traffic areas, this would also explain the rise in death rates as the Border Patrol is not ot there to save them.
Something that is never printed ot talked about is that very often when illegals are caught they are dehydrated and near exhaushtion from pushing themselves beyond what they are capable of.

If they died on the border, at least they died close to home.

So many Americans have lost their lives fighting for this country and died far from home and far from their loved ones, in so many wars, that it makes the death of people who "choose" to risk their life to break the law equivalent to a death by drug overdose or DUI.

A soldier didn't get to"choose", he/she just did their duty. Crossing the border illegally is not a duty, it's a personal choice. I do believe they, and they alone, chose their fate. When that fate ends in death, it was a risk they chose.

RIP on any who pass but the numbers just don't phase me when I read the numbers who die in this country at the hands of illegals who made it here and didn't die when they chose to cross the border illegally.