http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/ ... 10772.html

March 8, 2006, 7:49PM

Report Finds Problems on U.S., Mexico Line
By JENNIFER TALHELM Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — If the 24 counties along the nation's Southwest border were a 51st state, it would rank first in federal crimes, second in tuberculosis and near the bottom in education, per capita income and access to health care.

Members of the U.S./Mexico Border Counties Coalition released a report including those estimates Wednesday as senators began to grapple with proposals for overhauling the nation's immigration system.

The 246-page study by researchers at the University of Texas at El Paso examines the social, public health, criminal and environmental challenges facing the immigration-stressed region, which includes the sprawling urban communities of San Diego and El Paso and the desert and ranch country of Arizona and New Mexico.

Local officials say they hope the results show lawmakers they need help with alleviating grinding poverty, disease and crime.

Until illegal immigration became an issue of hot national debate, Congress treated the Southwest border with "benign neglect," said Patrick Call, chairman of the Cochise County, Ariz., Board of Supervisors.

"As we move forward, it's very important to keep in mind there are many other significant issues (than immigration) that come as a result of being on the border, and frankly tremendous opportunities," he said.

The group says the report fleshes out problems they've been discussing for years. Chief among them, members say, are the high rates of disease and lack of access to health care and insurance.

The study found the region ranks last in access to health care compared with the rest of the states and 50th in number of residents with insurance. Yet the prevalence of people with tuberculosis is twice that of United States as a whole. Residents also have high rates of AIDS, hepatitis and adult diabetes.

Local hospitals are straining to cover the cost of treating uninsured patients, said San Diego County Supervisor Greg Cox, the border group's president.

"You have seen a lot of our hospitals reach the breaking point," Cox said. "Some of them are on the verge of bankruptcy, and that's a very, very, very scary scenario."

The local officials will take the information with them as they meet with members of Congress this week and later.

The study's author, Dennis Soden, said members of Congress have reason to listen. "The Southwest is what the rest of the country is going to look like in five, 30 years: Hispanic majority, very young population, immigrant population," he said. "That places a burden on the school systems, on the health system."

Although many of the problems the report highlights involve the large numbers of migrants passing through their communities, many of the border officials in Washington this week said they don't support walls or other hard barriers to immigration proposed by members of Congress.

Manny Ruiz, a Santa Cruz, Ariz., county supervisor, said businesses in his community and across the country thrive because of the border traffic. In the winter and spring, about half of the fresh produce sold in the U.S. enters through Nogales, Ariz.

Ruiz and Call, the Coshise County, Ariz., supervisor, said they worry lawmakers from Georgia, Colorado and other heartland states don't understand the complex region. They hope the report will change that, too.

"The unintended consequences are very scary for us," Call said of some immigration bills being proposed in Congress. "We certainly appreciate the help, but we think we're better judges of what we need than someone who isn't here."