Thread: Illegal immigrant deaths tied to border policy

Published: 02.14.2007
UA study: Illegal immigrant deaths tied to border policy
CLAUDINE LoMONACO
Tucson Citizen
Researchers at the University of Arizona released a study today that attributes the exponential increase in border deaths to U.S. policy of "funnelling" illegal immigrants away from urban areas in Texas and California and into Arizona's harsh deserts.
Arizona accounts for a third to half of the 2,000 to 3,000 bodies of men, women and children found along the nearly 2,000 miles of the southern border over the last 10 years. Researchers at the University's Binational Migration Institute focused on deaths examined by the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office over a 15-year period to assess how the nature and character of the deaths have changed. The Pima County Medical Examiner's Office handled 90 percent of the Arizona deaths.
From 1990 to 1999, the Medical Examiner's office handled on average 14 deaths of illegal immigrants per year. Once traffic shifted into Arizona from 2000 to 2005, the number jumped to 160 deaths a year.
During that period, the percentage of dead from southern and central Mexico increased significantly, whereas those from northern Mexico decreased, the study found.
The study included analysis from the 2006 Government Accountability Office report, which found that the U.S. Border Patrol consistently undercount border deaths due to a very narrow set of criteria.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/41945.php

If your swimming off a beach that has shark nets and you swim past the shark net fence...I guess it should be no surprise you may die from a shark attack...