Minutemen reduce crossings, but Mexicans bide their time
http://www.sltrib.com/nationworld/ci_2643866
Minutemen reduce crossings, but Mexicans bide their time
By Olga R. Rodriguez
The Associated Press
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Migrants walk back along the border fence after Beta group officers, a unit that offers migrants protection and assistance, intercepted them and convinced them it would be too difficult to cross. (Luis Magana/The Associated Press)
AGUA PRIETA, Mexico - The number of Mexican migrants trying to sneak into the United States through the Arizona border has dropped by half since hundreds of American civilians began guarding the area earlier this week, say Mexican officials assigned to protect their citizens.
But that doesn't mean the migrants have given up. Most remain determined to enter the United States and say they will simply find other places to cross.
Before Minuteman Project volunteers began patrolling, Mexican officials encountered at least 400 illegals daily.
On Monday, the second day Minutemen were present, they spotted just 198, said Bertha de la Rosa of Grupo Beta, a Mexican government-sponsored group that discourages people from crossing illegally and aids those stranded in the desert.
''The fact that we're not seeing them here doesn't mean they are not trying to cross,'' said de la Rosa, the group's coordinator in Agua Prieta, a town across the border from Douglas, Ariz. ''They say they will look for another place or wait awhile - but they are not giving up.''
Grupo Beta, along with armed state police officers, began patrolling the Mexican side of the border Sunday.
Jose Luis Mercado is among those determined to cross.
Mercado, a farm worker from central Mexico state, was one of 10 migrants who walked through the desert all night Monday and early Tuesday before they were abandoned by the smuggler they had paid to get them across the border.
''He just said it was too risky to cross and to wait for him, but he never came back,'' Mercado said.
Mercado and his companions were resting in a ditch littered with plastic bottles, clothes and empty tuna cans when they were spotted by Grupo Beta agent Hector Salazar.
''There are a lot of people trying to catch you,'' Salazar told the migrants as a small plane and then a U.S. border patrol helicopter flew over the barbed-wire fence dividing the border.
''It's not only border patrol, but also armed civilians,'' Salazar said. ''Don't give them the pleasure of detaining you.''
But the migrants declined Grupo Beta's offer for a discounted bus ticket back home. They vowed to attempt the crossing as many times as it took to make it into the United States.
