By Diana Washington Valdez / El Paso Times
Posted: 12/26/2014 06:30:53 PM MST

Border Patrol apprehensions in the El Paso sector increased 11.5 percent in the most recent fiscal year compared with the previous fiscal year, statistics show.

During the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, agents who patrol the border in El Paso and Hudspeth Counties and in New Mexico apprehended 12,339 undocumented immigrants in fiscal year 2013-14 compared with 11,154 in fiscal year 2012-13.

In fiscal year 2011-12, there were 9,678 apprehensions; in 2010-11, there were 10,345 apprehensions; and in 2009-10, there were 12,251 apprehensions.

Throughout the U.S.-Mexico border, a total of 479,371 undocumented immigrants were apprehended in fiscal year 2013-2014. It also represents an 11.5 percent increase over the 414,397 apprehensions in fiscal year 2012-2103.

Ramiro Cordero, the El Paso's sector acting assistant chief Border Patrol agent, said on Friday that the Border Patrol continues to operate successfully and credits the work of agents in part to the Alliance to Combat Transnational Threats (ACTT), a collaborative that includes federal and local law enforcement agencies.

"What we are doing is working, and we will continue to be innovative in our approaches to patrolling the border," Cordero said. "We have great working relationships with the community, and as far as I know, we had zero incidents over the past year involving our agents.

"On apprehensions, we're way down on the numbers from what we used to have," Cordero said. "The word does get out that El Paso is very good at catching (unauthorized immigrants), and people will head over to other paths of less resistance."

In 2005, agents in the El Paso sector apprehended more than 120,000 immigrants.

The Border Patrol's statistics for El Paso for this year do not include undocumented immigrants who were part of the Central American immigrant surge in South Texas that surrendered to border officials at ports of entry and were transported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to El Paso and other communities for further processing.

Ruben Garcia, executive director of Annunciation House, a faith-based organization that provides temporary shelter to immigrants that pass through El Paso or that federal officials send to its shelters pending enforcement or asylum actions, said he noticed an increase in immigrants in the area.

"Over the summer, we had about 2,500 migrants (adults with children) sent to us from South Texas, and about 85 to 90 percent were from the Central American countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras," Garcia said. "We had not seen this kind of influx of Central Americans since the 1980s, when they had civil wars in those countries."

Border Patrol statistics show that 14,833 families (adults with one or more children) from El Salvador were apprehended at the Southwest border, 12,006 were from Guatemala, 34,495 were from Honduras and 5,639 from Mexico.

According to statistics for children that were not accompanied by parents or guardians when they were apprehended, the biggest number came from Honduras (18,244), the next larger group of unaccompanied minors were from Guatemala (17,057), followed by El Salvador (16,404) and Mexico (15,634).

Garcia said the immigrant shelters continue to see an influx of people from the violence-ravaged states of Michoacán and Guerrero.

"We are getting an average of 100 people a week from Mexico, and 75 to 80 percent of them are from these two states," Garcia said. "Their reasons for leaving are very similar to the reasons that Central Americans gave — crime and violence."

Mexican and church officials said three Roman Catholic priests were among those who were abducted and killed this year in Guerrero state — the Rev. Gregorio Lopez, the Rev. John Senyondo, a native of Uganda whose remains were found in one of Guerrero's killing fields, and the Rev. Ascension Acuna.

"This isn't going stop," Garcia said. "We are a global family, and because of that, we will continue to see such migrant trends. I am grateful to our U.S. border and immigration authorities for calling on use to help, and for President Barack Obama's directive that will allow some of the migrants to remain in the United States for now. What we really need though is for Congress to pass sensible and comprehensive immigration reform."

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