Thursday, January 03, 2008
SWOP homepageFNS 1/2/08: Migrant Deaths Up in 2007
Activists say migrants forced to more "isolated and dangerous" places like New Mexico desert to cross
Documented deaths of migrants in southern Arizona’s so-called “Corridor of Death” rose sharply in 2007. Official statistics from the US Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector report 204 migrant deaths during the 2007 fiscal year that ended on September 30 of last year. The death toll represented a 21 percent increase from fiscal year 2006, when 165 deaths were registered.
Sean King, Border Patrol spokesman, attributed the increase in fatalities to the deployment of more Border Patrol agents in the field. King said that with more officers in the field, more migrant bodies which might have
gone undetected in the past were recovered.
But Kat Rodriguez, an organizer for the Tucson-based Human Rights Coalition, a non-governmental organization, blamed the additional deaths on tighter US border security measures that encouraged undocumented
migrants to undertake risky journeys.
“These deaths are a direct consequence of the militarization of the US border,” Rodriguez charged. “So many agents, so much technology is simply forcing undocumented (migrants) to cross through more isolated and dangerous places. We are currently seeing a change of the migration flow towards the desert of New Mexico.”
In 2007, the US federal government increased the manpower of the US Border Patrol by 3,000 agents. Washington also expanded border walls in the Yuma, Nogales and Douglas regions, and installed large towers in the region.
Based on reports from medical examiners in the southern Arizona counties of Yuma, Pima and Cochise, the Human Rights Coalition reports a higher death toll for the region than does the Border Patrol. The immigrant rights group cited 237 deaths for FY 2007, a number 32 higher than in FY 2006, when the coalition documented 205 deaths.
In addition to documented deaths, disappearances are a growing problem, Rodriguez added. “It is frustrating to receive the calls of so many people, who only know that their family members crossed through the Arizona desert and then never heard anything more of them,” she said.
According to the US Border Patrol, 437 undocumented migrants died in the entire US-Mexico border region during FY 2007.
Source: Frontera/SUN, December 31, 2007.
Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin
American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico
For a free electronic subscription email
fnsnews@nmsu.edu
Documented deaths of migrants in southern Arizona’s so-called “Corridor of Death” rose sharply in 2007. Official statistics from the US Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector report 204 migrant deaths during the 2007 fiscal year that ended on September 30 of last year. The death toll represented a 21 percent increase from fiscal year 2006, when 165 deaths were registered.
Sean King, Border Patrol spokesman, attributed the increase in fatalities to the deployment of more Border Patrol agents in the field. King said that with more officers in the field, more migrant bodies which might have
gone undetected in the past were recovered.
But Kat Rodriguez, an organizer for the Tucson-based Human Rights Coalition, a non-governmental organization, blamed the additional deaths on tighter US border security measures that encouraged undocumented
migrants to undertake risky journeys.
“These deaths are a direct consequence of the militarization of the US border,” Rodriguez charged. “So many agents, so much technology is simply forcing undocumented (migrants) to cross through more isolated and dangerous places. We are currently seeing a change of the migration flow towards the desert of New Mexico.”
In 2007, the US federal government increased the manpower of the US Border Patrol by 3,000 agents. Washington also expanded border walls in the Yuma, Nogales and Douglas regions, and installed large towers in the region.
Based on reports from medical examiners in the southern Arizona counties of Yuma, Pima and Cochise, the Human Rights Coalition reports a higher death toll for the region than does the Border Patrol. The immigrant rights group cited 237 deaths for FY 2007, a number 32 higher than in FY 2006, when the coalition documented 205 deaths.
In addition to documented deaths, disappearances are a growing problem, Rodriguez added. “It is frustrating to receive the calls of so many people, who only know that their family members crossed through the Arizona desert and then never heard anything more of them,” she said.
According to the US Border Patrol, 437 undocumented migrants died in the entire US-Mexico border region during FY 2007.
Source: Frontera/SUN, December 31, 2007.
Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin
American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico
For a free electronic subscription email
fnsnews@nmsu.edu
