Thread: United States, Mexico resume voluntary interior repatriation

I.C.E. News Release

June 3, 2010

United States, Mexico resume voluntary interior repatriation program

TUCSON, Ariz. - The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Mexican Ministry of the Interior announced Thursday that the Mexican Interior Repatriation Program (MIRP) - a bilaterally beneficial voluntary program that ensures the safe and swift return of Mexican nationals found to be in the Sonora Arizona desert region of the United States unlawfully to their places of origin in the Mexican interior - has resumed for the seventh consecutive summer.

First initiated in 2004, MIRP was designed as a bilateral effort between the United States and Mexico to reduce the loss of human life and combat organized crime linked to the smuggling, trafficking and exploitation of aliens along the Arizona/Mexico border.

"MIRP reflects our mutual commitment to strong and effective enforcement of both nations' immigration laws, and this program is proof that we can do so in a humanitarian way," said Alonzo Pena, deputy assistant secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). "This program prioritizes the humane treatment of detainees throughout the removal process."

Under MIRP, Mexican nationals apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol in the Yuma and Tucson sectors are taken to DHS facilities in Nogales and Yuma, Ariz., where candidates are medically screened, meet with officials from the Mexican Consulate, and are offered the opportunity to voluntarily participate in the program.

As a humanitarian program, candidates for MIRP also include those who are identified as "at risk" due to criteria like age, physical condition or distance from their hometowns, as these populations are particularly vulnerable to heat or risk of victimization by criminals operating in border regions. Criminal aliens convicted of violent crimes are ineligible to participate in MIRP.

Individuals who volunteer to participate in the program are flown to Mexico City via daily flights coordinated by ICE Detention and Removal Operations from Tucson International Airport and provided bus transportation to their hometowns in the interior of Mexico.

This year's first repatriation flight departed Tucson International Airport June 1, and flights are scheduled to continue this year through Sept. 28.

More than 93,000 Mexican nationals have been safely returned under MIRP over the program's previous six summers.

-- ICE --

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security.

ICE comprises four integrated divisions that form a 21st century law enforcement agency with broad responsibilities for a number of key homeland security priorities. For more information, visit www.ICE.gov. To report suspicious activity, call 1-866-347-2423.

Last Modified: Friday, June 4, 2010
U.S. Department of Homeland Security

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1006/100603tucson.htm

It's the 7th summer of program meant to cut desert deaths

Repatriation flights for crossers resume

Brady McCombs Arizona Daily Star
Friday, June 4, 2010 12:00 am

The Mexican Interior Repatriation Program began its seventh summer of operations Tuesday

Since the binational Mexican Interior Repatriation Program began in 2004, the U.S. government has spent about $71 million to fly nearly 93,000 non-criminal Mexican illegal immigrants to Mexico City.

The annual summer push to prevent border deaths has begun.

One of the main programs run each year by the U.S. and Mexican governments began this week with the launch of the seventh annual Mexican Interior Repatriation Program on Tuesday. Under the voluntary program, non-criminal Mexican illegal immigrants caught by the Border Patrol in Arizona are offered flights home.

The program's objective is to disrupt the smuggling cycle and save lives.

More than 1,850 illegal border crossers have been found dead in Arizona's desert in the last decade, with the yearly death toll hovering around 200 a year.

"We do this for the primary reason to save lives that might have been lost in the extreme desert heat," said Alonzo Pena, deputy assistant secretary with U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement. "This is a humanitarian project."

This year's program is scheduled to run until Sept. 28 with two flights daily from Tucson to Mexico City. The 120 days will be longer than in any of the previous six years when the program has run 80 to 110 days. This year's edition is also expected to cost more than the previous six years - about $18 million in total, according to Pena.

Last year, the flights started later in the summer, ran for fewer days and cost less than in the previous years: It began Aug. 25 and ran for 38 days at the cost of $5.4 million. U.S. and Mexican officials said negotiations and logistics delayed the start last year.

For the second consecutive year, Miami Air will operate the twice-daily flights that can carry up to 154 people. AeroMexico operated the flights the first five years of the program.

Under the program, Mexican illegal immigrants with no criminal records are offered flights back to Mexico City and bus fares to their homes.

The goal is to keep illegal immigrants away from smugglers who could put them back in harm's way during the scorching summer along the deadliest stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border. The program is also being offered in the Border Patrol's Yuma Sector, which covers Western Arizona and the eastern part of California.

Critics consider the program little more than a costly shell game used by both governments to show they are doing something about the ongoing crisis. The number of bodies of illegal immigrants found each year in Arizona has not decreased since the program started.

There were 221 bodies recovered in calendar 2009, compared with 190 in 2008, 237 in 2007, 216 in 2006 and 241 in 2005, the Arizona Daily Star's Border Death Database shows. The database is compiled using information from the Pima and Cochise County medical examiners' offices.

Through May 31 of this year, the bodies of 84 illegal border crossers have been recovered in Arizona, up from 65 at the same time last year, the database shows.

But both governments consider the program a success, citing lives saved of people who might have otherwise reconnected with smugglers, tried again and succumbed to the heat.

"There's a reason it's been going for seven years now," Alejandro Salas Dominguez, a delegate with the Mexico National Institute of Migration, said in Spanish. "We've had great participation from our citizens who have voluntarily accepted the program."

Only a small percentage of people decline the flights when offered, Salas said.

Contact reporter Brady McCombs at 573-4213 or bmccombs@azstarnet.com

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/border/ ... 26756.html