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More Central, South Americans being apprehended at border

08:27 PM CDT on Sunday, May 8, 2005
Associated Press

BROWNSVILLE – Illegal immigrants from Central and South American countries could soon surpass Mexicans as the largest group of immigrants apprehended while crossing the border and moving through Texas.

U.S. Border Patrol agents in Texas have detained more migrants who weren't from Mexico in the first seven months of this fiscal year than they did in fiscal 2004. A rising number are from Brazil and four Central American nations, Border Patrol figures show.

Mexicans remain the largest group of illegal migrants entering the United States. Those from all other Latin American countries account for about a quarter of illegal immigrants nationally.

But their numbers have increased and could pass figures for illegal Mexican immigrants apprehended in South Texas by the next fiscal year, Border Patrol officials say.

Up to 40 percent of migrants from countries other than Mexico detained in the United States this fiscal year were arrested in the Rio Grande Valley and deep South Texas, U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Texas, said at a congressional hearing in March.

During fiscal 2003, about 1,000 of the more than 5,000 illegal Brazilians apprehended in the United States were caught in South Texas. In the first seven months of fiscal 2005, those numbers increased to 15,547 Brazilians nationwide with 12,134 detected in the Valley.

"It is very much an area of concern for the U.S. government," said John Naland, the U.S. consul in Matamoros, Mexico.

Illegal migrants from other countries have taken advantage of easy visa requirements in Mexico, allowing them to use it as a jumping point to cross through South Texas, Mr. Naland said.

Larger numbers of Central American immigrants came through South Texas during the 1980s, when many countries in that region were in the midst of civil wars, said Nathan Selzer, of the Valley Movement for Human Rights.