May 31, 2005

U.S. and Mexico Agree to Continue Repatriation Program for Illegal Migrants
By Lara Jakes Jordan
Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON (AP) - Illegal immigrants caught crossing the Mexican border will be offered a free ticket home in the second summer of an experimental Homeland Security Department program, U.S. and Mexico officials said Tuesday.


The so-called repatriation program aims to reduce the chances of migrants re-crossing the porous Arizona border by flying them deep into the interior of Mexico. But immigrants rights groups charge the program is expensive and ineffective.

U.S. officials had previously said they hoped to continue the voluntary program for a second year, but Mexico had not agreed until Tuesday.

Mexico Interior Minister Santiago Creel told reporters in Washington that last year's program "gave us satisfactory results."

Over a three-month period last summer, at a cost of $15.4 million, U.S. Customs and Border Protection captured 14,067 illegal border crossers and flew them to Mexico City and Guadalajara. From there, the migrants were given bus tickets to their home communities. Many of the immigrants were deemed at physical risk if they tried to cross the border through the desert again.

Currently, illegal immigrants captured in the United States are flown or bused to the border.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the program would resume shortly, but he said he did not know whether it would be an annual event.

"It's ongoing for this summer - we can only speak one year at a time," Chertoff said.

Critics say the money would be better spent by installing water stations and rescue beacons in the desert. Moreover, said the Rev. Robin Hoover, president of Tucson-based Humane Borders, many migrants ultimately return to cross again.

"A bunch of them were back in another week or 10 days," Hoover said.

Separately, Creel said Mexico's government is "very worried" about the newly approved REAL ID Act that requires states to verify that people who apply for a driver's license are in the country legally. The act also makes it harder for immigrants to gain amnesty and easier to override environmental laws to build a barrier along the border with California.

"Both of these worries I expressed to Chertoff in previous meetings, and I am also expressing them now," said Creel, who is expected to announced his candidacy for president of Mexico this week.
Chertoff said Homeland Security will "have to make the appropriate judgments about what the impact of the law will be."

AP-ES-05-31-05 2021EDT

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