Thread: Immigrant traffic picks up in Az

Published: 01.25.2007
Immigrant traffic picks up in Az
The flow north in January is an annual post-holiday event
CLAUDINE LoMONACO
Tucson Citizen
The annual post-holiday spike in U.S.-Mexico border traffic appears to be in full bloom, despite earlier indications that the federal buildup along the border reduced illegal immigration through Arizona.
Grupo Beta, an immigrant aid group of the Mexican government, estimated that 1,800 to 2,400 immigrants crossed through its checkpoint south of Sasabe every day since mid-January. The figure keeps pace with the flow last year at this time, the group's director, Victor Armendariz, said Wednesday.
Illegal immigrant traffic increases dramatically in early January, when many workers return to the United States after going home for the holidays.
Gustavo Soto, a spokesman for the Border Patrol's Tucson sector, said that in the past two weeks, apprehensions rose from about 400 to 500 a day to 1,200 to 1,500 in the sector. It stretches from the New Mexico border to the Yuma County line.
The Border Patrol declined to release exact figures, citing a new policy of waiting until the beginning of every month to make them public, Soto said.
Armendariz said traffic in Sasabe slowed over the weekend because of freezing temperatures.
In Altar, Son., a small town an hour south of Sasabe and a popular staging ground for immigrants, flophouses are full, the plaza is packed and shops are crammed with immigrants picking up last-minute supplies for the journey, observers said.
"It's the same as usual," Francisco Garcia, the town's former mayor said Wednesday. Until last month, he ran the town's immigrant shelter.
Garcia said the return of the workers was a relief to the town's merchants, who were frightened last summer that the presence of National Guard troops along the border would permanently shift traffic from Arizona.
Jose Antonio Rivera Cortez, who runs the Sonora Migrant Assistance Office, said 500 to 600 immigrants a day arrive at the aid station just south of the Mariposa Port of Entry in Nogales.
He said three times as many people arrive in Nogales every day. The station operates between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m.
Immigrants who pass through the station receive a cup of coffee, soup and first aid.
"They come to us in horrible shape," Rivera said. "Many haven't eaten in days or had anything to drink."
Rivera, who served as the Mexican consul in Tucson during the 1980s, drove to Tucson earlier this week to pick up nearly $2,500 in supplies donated by several Methodist churches and distributed by the group Humane Borders.
The supplies included water bottles, clothing, health kits and 100 wool blankets.
"We'll save the blankets for the women and children. We're seeing a lot more of them this year," Rivera said.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/39768.php

Where's that darn fence!!!!!!!