-
Expert says:

Increased border enforcement fails to deter illegal crossings

By Brenda Gazzar
Staff Writer

As "Minuteman Project" civilians patrol the Arizona-Sonora border today urging stronger border enforcement, one expert argues that the government's recent efforts to safeguard the border have done little to deter illegal crossings.

The government is spending four times as much on border enforcement as it did in 1993, and traditional crossing points have been fortified.

However, most unauthorized migrants are still highly motivated to cross and are entering the country largely on their first or second try, said Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego.

And despite an "unprecedented buildup" of border enforcement and resources in the past 10 years, the population of unauthorized immigrants has grown by about 6.5 million during the same period, Cornelius said during a Tomas Rivera Policy Institute immigration conference Thursday at the Omni Los Angeles Hotel.

"Precisely, because we have made it much more costly and dangerous to cross the border, that provides a strong incentive to stay put in the U.S. and to unify their families on the U.S. side of the border," Cornelius said.

In fact, 46 percent of the illegal immigrant population living in the United States today are women of childbearing age and children younger than 18, Cornelius said.

The government's current policy of "prevention through deterrence" has failed, Cornelius explained, because border crossers are still not getting caught.

In a study of migrants from the Mexican states of Jalisco and Zacatecas, 70 percent said they believed it was much more difficult or almost impossible to evade Border Patrol. However, fewer than one out of four unauthorized migrants who had previously entered the United States had been apprehended during their most recent attempt.

Thirty-six percent had entered successfully on the first try, while another 40 percent had entered on their second try, he said.

Unauthorized immigrants are also willing to pay much more to be professionally smuggled into the country. Average fees - running around $2,500 per head - are now five times greater than in 1993, Cornelius' research showed.

There is a larger dependence, too, on the number of unauthorized migrants relying on professional smugglers - 84 percent used them in their most recent trip compared to fewer than half in 1989.

And while deaths along the Southwest border continue to rise, and the vast majority of returned migrants say they believe it is "very dangerous" to cross the border, 46 percent of those without papers plan to make the trip to the United States during 2005.

Among those who don't migrate, only 20 percent cited tougher border enforcement as a main reason.

"Only demand reduction, i.e., fewer jobs in the U.S., is likely to be an effective deterrent," Cornelius said.

"And systematic reduction in demand of labor is not likely to happen any time soon," he said, adding there is a lack of the necessary political consensus.

Some disagree, however, saying they are optimistic that a combination of factors including stricter border enforcement, enforcement of tough employer sanctions, and laws that make life more difficult for undocumented residents can work.

"I think we have reached the point that the lives of so many Americans have been affected by this now in all parts of the country, that there is a growing constituency out there for real change," Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said earlier in March.

Brenda Gazzar can be reached by e-mail at brenda.gazzar@dailybulletin.com or by phone at (909) 483-9355.
http://www.dailybulletin.com/Stories/0, ... 55,00.html