Sharp Rise In Deaths Along Arizona Border

Tightened Border Security Drives Illegal Migrants Towards Riskier Desert Routes

(AP)  The number of illegal immigrants who die trying to cross into Arizona from Mexico is rising despite tighter border security that was to serve as a deterrent, a border medical examiner says.

Instead, deaths along much of the Arizona border - the busiest illegal entry point on the 1,950-mile U.S.-Mexico frontier - are ahead of the record pace set two years ago, said Dr. Bruce Parks, a medical examiner whose office performs autopsies on many of the illegal immigrants who die in Arizona.

Parks said 181 bodies or sets of remains were recovered between Jan. 1 and Sept 8, compared with 148 in the same period last year. In 2005, officials found 166 bodies during that period.

Many of those victims will have died because of the heat, which regularly exceeds 100 degrees during the hottest part of the Arizona summer.

"We still anticipate finding remains between now and the first of the month," said the Rev. Robin Hoover, founder of the Tucson-based Humane Borders group, which has had search parties out looking for bodies the last two weekends. "There's bodies out there that we know of that we just haven't found yet."

Hoover's group also places water tanks throughout the desert for use by migrants trying to cross the desert from Mexico into the U.S. "Someone will walk out and say 'these two people died' and tell us about where and we go out and try to find them," Hoover said.

Border Patrol statistics show a higher death toll, but the agency's count for 2007 began with the start of the federal fiscal year on Oct. 1. According to federal figures, 197 bodies or remains have been recovered in Arizona's deserts through Aug. 31. In the year-earlier period, 200 were found.

"The patrol doesn't want to see any deaths," said Dove Haber, a spokeswoman in the patrol's Tucson sector, which covers most of the Arizona border except for an area around Yuma. "Our ideal would be that there would be none. The positive is that our rescue numbers are high."

Lloyd Easterling, a Border Patrol spokesman in Washington, said he believes more skeletal remains are being found because the agency's ramp-up of personnel and resources has more agents out patrolling remote, treacherous terrain.

Hoover said the Border Patrol's efforts to shut off migration have just forced illegal immigrants to cross even more dangerous ground.

Easterling said the number of deaths across the entire Southwestern border of the United States stood at 371 as of the end of August, compared to 442 two years ago. The total for all of the 2005 fiscal year was a record 494.

[Krazcarl]

g17mtjag,,,excellent info...

[g17mtjag]

Mexican people have lived in Mexico for 20,000 years and have seen empires and conquests come and go. Mexican independence from Spain came from a revolution in 1810.

A second revolution was fought from 1910 to 1921 and killed 1 million Mexicans (of a population of 15 million at that time: 1 in 15 killed). You can read more about that by googling Mexican Revolution.

In between these 2 revolutions Mexico endured an invasion and occupation by the United States (1848), a war that the US started in order to acquire more than half of Mexico''s territory.

The Native Americans of Mexico (Aztecs, Mayans, Tarascans, others) faced conquests by the Spanish and the French. It''s status as a Colonial outpost of each of these empires has had "some" impact on its current economic reality having for centuries been a supplier of wealth to the Spanish empire and the French Empire of Napoleon III who installed the Austrian Maximillian as Emperor of Mexico.

But Mexico remains Mexican. Over 60 percent of Mexico today is mixed race Native American and European while 30 percent remains unmixed Native American. Unlike the conquerors further north in the US, Conquerors of Mexico, although brutal, married native Mexicans and produced the only nation that brings to the modern world the merger of European and American culture. Many Mexicans speak SPANISH as a second language, or not at all. Many speak only their Native American language (Nauhatl and others)

[slim1h2o]

We can''''t fix their government for them, they have to do it for themselves. Remember the American revolution? We fought and died to fix ours, let them do the same....




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Posted by CharlesDJohn at 08:39 AM : Sep 16, 2007
As if that''s going to happen,,,,,,,,,,any time soon anyways

[charlesdjohn]

What part of "illegal" don''t you people understand?

The problem of illegal aliens did not start with the Bush Administration nor will it end there.

The problem is that America is a really good place to live and that Mexico is a 3rd world sh*thole.

We can''t fix their government for them, they have to do it for themselves. Remember the American revolution? We fought and died to fix ours, let them do the same....

[AgentGGG]

We should be encouraging the Mexican government to adopt economic policies that encourage growth and jobs in their own country. We should be investing in the Mexican market, instead of all the way in China.

[rohink-2009]

Reminds me of the beatles song......
"It''s getting better all the time"

[tucano2]

Happy the American Desert is killing illegal aliens; for sure George Bush doen''t have the cojones to do his job.

[olebd]

Maybe word on the street will get back to all of them trying to cross that it is much too risky now and they will all stay put(?)

I know, wishful thinking.

The only way this will get better is if the USA gets tougher. Enough is enough.

[ne_patriot7]

"Sharp Rise In Deaths Along Arizona Border"

Good!!!.. now, if that percentage could only close in on 100%, the problem would be resolved..

[likeitis5050]

BTW, they don''''t risk their lives to come here just to get whatever they can "for free". Conditions in Mexico really are so bad that it seems worth risking their lives. And *that''''s* just the way Bush wants to keep it!


Posted by MyIDonCBS at 05:22 PM : Sep 15, 2007

So Fox has nothing to do with the problem...it''s a simple matter of Bush keeping things so awful in Mexico that millions of illegals risk lives to get here? Really?