FEWER CAUGHT CROSSING

Apprehensions decline 18%; drug seizures dip

The number of apprehensions by Border Patrol agents in the El Paso
Sector declined during the past year, but undocumented immigrants are
facing greater dangers before reaching the border.

For the federal fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, agents apprehended
12,251 undocumented immigrants, 18 percent less than in the previous
year.

Valeria Morales, a supervisory Border Patrol agent, attributed the
decline to having more agents on patrol, technology to monitor border
incursions and the border fence.

"All of these factors have made it more difficult for immigrants to
cross the border illegally," Morales said.

The agency also reported seizures of 82,010 pounds of illegal drugs,
compared to 87,775 pounds the previous year. The El Paso Sector covers
West Texas and Southern New Mexico.

Morales said Border Patrol agents were victims of 63 assaults,
compared with 60 the previous year.

"Most of these involved people throwing rocks at our agents," Morales
said.

In August, an El Paso Border Patrol agent shot and killed a
15-year-old boy, who was among a group that threw rocks at the agent
from the Mexican side of the river, near the Paso del Norte Bridge.

U.S. officials said the teenager had a history of smuggling
immigrants. The boy's relatives said this was not true. U.S. and
Mexican officials continue to investigate the case. The U.S.
government has rejected public records requests seeking the agent's
identity.

Morales said the Border Patrol is seeing more juveniles involved in
smuggling drugs and immigrants in recent years.

"That is one of the troublesome trends our agents have encountered,"
she said.

In June, El Paso's Border Patrol reported a first in the sector's
history -- the discovery of a tunnel between Juarez and El Paso that
was being used to smuggle drugs.

The tunnel stretched 130 feet beneath the Rio Grande near the Bridge
of Americas. Agents arrested a 17-year-old boy who was near the tunnel
on the U.S. side of the border and seized 200 pounds of marijuana from
the structure.

Morales said the El Paso Sector Border Patrol is working with the U.S.
Attorney's Office and El Paso District Attorney and County Attorneys
to try to reduce the number of juvenile smugglers involved in illegal
activities.

During fiscal year 2010, the El Paso Sector initiated criminal
smuggling charges against 12 juveniles.

"This initiative will ensure the prosecution of juvenile smugglers
that endanger the lives of the people they are smuggling," Morales
said. "Many of these juveniles are responsible for many
immigrant-drowning incidents in the El Paso-area canals and deaths in
remote desert areas."

Generalized violence has increased the perils for undocumented
immigrants who travel through Mexico long before they reach the
border, human rights advocates said.

According to Amnesty International, recent attacks against migrants
have created a human rights crisis.

"Persistent failure by the authorities to tackle abuses carried out
against .. migrants has made their journey through Mexico one of the
most dangerous in the world," said Rupert Knox, a Mexico specialist
for Amnesty International.

Kidnappings for ransom reached new heights in 2009. Mexico's National
Human Rights Commission reported that nearly 10,000 people were
abducted during a six-month period.

Most of the victims alleged that officials were involved, according to
the London-based organization.

One woman told Amnesty International investigators that armed police
stopped a train carrying 100 immigrants in the Mexican state of
Chiapas in January, forced them off the train and stole their belongings.

Later, the woman was raped by armed thugs who killed one of the other
migrants with her. The group was headed to the U.S. border.

And in June, Zetas drug gang members massacred 72 undocumented
immigrants in the state of Tamaulipas because they refused to work for
them, officials said. The victims included residents of Central and
South America who were bound for Brownsville, Texas.

Ruben Garcia, director of Annunciation House, a faith-based center in
El Paso for refugees from other countries, said the center is seeing
more people who fled from Mexico because of the drug violence.

"We get calls on occasion from (the Department of Homeland Security)
asking us to shelter some of these people temporarily, and some of
them are in real danger," Garcia said. "But once they leave the
center, they are on their own and without any protection."

Garcia said the U.S. government is rejecting most of the asylum
petitions from Mexicans who are fleeing the violence, and these people
live in hiding because there is no legal basis to protect them.

The U.S. government received 2,816 asylum petitions from Mexican
citizens in fiscal 2009, granted 62 and denied 166.

In fiscal year 2005, before drug violence spiked in Mexico, the U.S.
government received 2,947 asylum petitions, granted 34 and denied 356.