Desertdog
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Maybe our government should take some lessons from Mexico on how to control illegals.
Mexico struggling to stop wave of migrants
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=local&story_id=072805a4_migrants&page_number=0
It is spending 30% more to protect its border, expelling a record number of illegal immigrants.
The Arizona Republic
MEXICO CITY - For Mexico, the shoe is now on the other foot.
After decades as the main source of illegal immigrants in the United States, Mexico is struggling to stop a rising tide of illegal migration on its own soil, building detention centers, adding immigration agents and expelling record numbers of foreigners.
The wave of migrants from Central America, Ecuador, Brazil and other countries threatens to drive up Mexico's border patrol costs by 30 percent this year as authorities repatriate an unprecedented 215,000 people, the head of the country's National Migration Institute has warned Mexico's Congress.
Some of that wave is beginning to reach the U.S. border. In the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector, the number of Central Americans crossing the border is up 86 percent from a year ago, with 7,958 people detained since Oct. 1, the start of the federal fiscal year. At the same time, the number of Mexicans is down 11 percent, to 366,256.
The numbers show Mexican authorities are bearing the brunt of migrants who otherwise would be trying to cross into Arizona and other states, experts said.
"If they (Mexican officials) weren't deporting them, these people would probably be coming here," said José Luis Garza, a spokesman for the Tucson sector.
Migration experts say the rise in migrant detentions has several causes.
First, Central Americans who fled the region after 1998's Hurricane Mitch and the 2001 El Salvador earthquake are beginning to bring their families to the United States. Other migrants are trying to escape the economic slump in Honduras, Guatemala and other countries that followed the U.S. recession of 2001.
Second, President Vicente Fox's government began cracking down on foreign migrants headed to the United States after he took office in December 2000.
The move was partly aimed at persuading the U.S. government to sign an immigration accord with Mexico, said Karina Arias, coordinator for Sin Fronteras, a migrant rights group.
The phenomenon has put Mexico in a peculiar position. On one hand, it is the United States' biggest single source of illegal immigrants. On the other, it has the strongest economy in Latin America and increasingly is becoming a destination for its poorer neighbors.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration is pressuring Mexico to beef up its border security to help keep terrorists out of North America. And Mexicans themselves are becoming increasingly concerned about their porous southern border because of the rise of the Mara Salvatrucha, Central American gangs that control migrant smuggling routes.
"Our country is confronting challenges in (migration) like no other nation on the planet," Magdalena Carral, Mexico's migration commissioner, recently told a congressional committee.
According to the National Migration Institute:
The number of illegal immigrants detained in Mexico has risen nearly every year for the past decade, increasing 40 percent from 2000 to 2004. In 1997, authorities caught 86,973 illegal immigrants. By 2004, the number was 215,695. Of those, 211,218 were deported.
Officials are predicting a record 215,000 deportations this year. From January to the end of May, authorities expelled 107,349 people, an increase of 12.5 percent over 2004.
The number of illegal foreigners turned away at airports and border crossing points has grown even faster: from 6,822 in 2002 to 10,089 in 2004.
Since 2003, the Mexican government has remodeled 45 detention centers and built two more in Tijuana and Los Cabos to handle the influx of migrants.
Three more are under construction in Tapachula, along the Guatemalan border; in Acayucan, along a major highway in the state of Veracruz; and in Janos, 30 miles south of the New Mexico border in Chihuahua state.
Civic groups also have opened a new shelter for unaccompanied child migrants, whose numbers rose from 697 in 2003 to 3,722 in 2004. Experts say tougher U.S. border security has made it riskier for migrants in the United States to return for their children.
In Arizona, Central Americans are beginning to take the most dangerous or undesirable jobs, such as roofing, as Mexican migrants move up the economic ladder.
In Mexico, they're increasingly taking work as farm hands and other low-paying jobs, sometimes directly replacing Mexicans who have left for the United States.
"They are coming and taking jobs the Mexicans don't want," said Rodolfo Casillas, a migration expert at the Latin American School of Social Sciences in Mexico City.
Mexico struggling to stop wave of migrants
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=local&story_id=072805a4_migrants&page_number=0
It is spending 30% more to protect its border, expelling a record number of illegal immigrants.
The Arizona Republic
MEXICO CITY - For Mexico, the shoe is now on the other foot.
After decades as the main source of illegal immigrants in the United States, Mexico is struggling to stop a rising tide of illegal migration on its own soil, building detention centers, adding immigration agents and expelling record numbers of foreigners.
The wave of migrants from Central America, Ecuador, Brazil and other countries threatens to drive up Mexico's border patrol costs by 30 percent this year as authorities repatriate an unprecedented 215,000 people, the head of the country's National Migration Institute has warned Mexico's Congress.
Some of that wave is beginning to reach the U.S. border. In the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector, the number of Central Americans crossing the border is up 86 percent from a year ago, with 7,958 people detained since Oct. 1, the start of the federal fiscal year. At the same time, the number of Mexicans is down 11 percent, to 366,256.
The numbers show Mexican authorities are bearing the brunt of migrants who otherwise would be trying to cross into Arizona and other states, experts said.
"If they (Mexican officials) weren't deporting them, these people would probably be coming here," said José Luis Garza, a spokesman for the Tucson sector.
Migration experts say the rise in migrant detentions has several causes.
First, Central Americans who fled the region after 1998's Hurricane Mitch and the 2001 El Salvador earthquake are beginning to bring their families to the United States. Other migrants are trying to escape the economic slump in Honduras, Guatemala and other countries that followed the U.S. recession of 2001.
Second, President Vicente Fox's government began cracking down on foreign migrants headed to the United States after he took office in December 2000.
The move was partly aimed at persuading the U.S. government to sign an immigration accord with Mexico, said Karina Arias, coordinator for Sin Fronteras, a migrant rights group.
The phenomenon has put Mexico in a peculiar position. On one hand, it is the United States' biggest single source of illegal immigrants. On the other, it has the strongest economy in Latin America and increasingly is becoming a destination for its poorer neighbors.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration is pressuring Mexico to beef up its border security to help keep terrorists out of North America. And Mexicans themselves are becoming increasingly concerned about their porous southern border because of the rise of the Mara Salvatrucha, Central American gangs that control migrant smuggling routes.
"Our country is confronting challenges in (migration) like no other nation on the planet," Magdalena Carral, Mexico's migration commissioner, recently told a congressional committee.
According to the National Migration Institute:
The number of illegal immigrants detained in Mexico has risen nearly every year for the past decade, increasing 40 percent from 2000 to 2004. In 1997, authorities caught 86,973 illegal immigrants. By 2004, the number was 215,695. Of those, 211,218 were deported.
Officials are predicting a record 215,000 deportations this year. From January to the end of May, authorities expelled 107,349 people, an increase of 12.5 percent over 2004.
The number of illegal foreigners turned away at airports and border crossing points has grown even faster: from 6,822 in 2002 to 10,089 in 2004.
Since 2003, the Mexican government has remodeled 45 detention centers and built two more in Tijuana and Los Cabos to handle the influx of migrants.
Three more are under construction in Tapachula, along the Guatemalan border; in Acayucan, along a major highway in the state of Veracruz; and in Janos, 30 miles south of the New Mexico border in Chihuahua state.
Civic groups also have opened a new shelter for unaccompanied child migrants, whose numbers rose from 697 in 2003 to 3,722 in 2004. Experts say tougher U.S. border security has made it riskier for migrants in the United States to return for their children.
In Arizona, Central Americans are beginning to take the most dangerous or undesirable jobs, such as roofing, as Mexican migrants move up the economic ladder.
In Mexico, they're increasingly taking work as farm hands and other low-paying jobs, sometimes directly replacing Mexicans who have left for the United States.
"They are coming and taking jobs the Mexicans don't want," said Rodolfo Casillas, a migration expert at the Latin American School of Social Sciences in Mexico City.
