By Chris Kraul, Times Staff Writer
MEXICO CITY -- The first repatriation flight of Mexicans caught illegally crossing the Arizona border landed here Monday evening, kicking off a new deportation program that could return thousands of border crossers deep into Mexico.
U.S. officials say using planes to ferry Mexicans home -- rather than dropping them off at the border -- would keep migrants away from smugglers and discourage repeated attempts at sneaking back into the United States.
But 20-year-old Hector Dimas, among the 138 migrants who disembarked from a chartered Air Mexicana flight, said the program would not squash his dream to return to work in the United States.
"I will be going back in 15 days," said Dimas, who has worked in Dallas as a construction worker for the last four years. "I need to work. The jobs in Mexico don't pay anything."
Seven of eight deportees interviewed within a half hour period Monday said they would cross the border soon.
"I'll try again in a month," said 34-year-old Juan Mora, who left behind his wife and two young children in Richardson, Texas, to visit relatives in Mexico. The landscape worker had made four successful border crossings until this weekend when he was arrested by U.S. border agents.
Like Mora, the migrants who arrived here Monday agreed to leave a federal detention facility in Tucson, Ariz., and take the free flight home.
The chartered flights cost U.S. taxpayers $28,000 each and will return up to 300 migrants daily. By Thursday, the repatriation operation will include direct daily flights from Tucson to Guadalajara, as well as to Mexico City. Migrants electing to leave their detention facility will be given bus vouchers to take them from the airports to their hometown.
U.S. officials have pledged to avoid the use of shackles, restraints and handcuffs in transporting the returning migrants. On Monday, the returning migrants reported that they were provided with a meal of spinach pasta and soft drinks during the three-hour flight.
U.S. and Mexican officials say they hope that the joint "voluntary repatriation" program would reduce the numbers of migrant deaths in the brutal heat of the Arizona desert this summer.
Mexican officials reported that 422 people died last year trying to enter the United States through California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Arizona accounted for the most fatalities. Through June 21, at least 148 Mexicans have died along the Southwest border this year with the hottest summer months still ahead.
While acknowledging the program may save lives, migrant advocates say the U.S. government is motivated by more than good deeds, noting that the U.S. Border Patrol has recently launched an aggressive campaign to round up illegal migrants.
Agency officials say they hope that the new repatriation scheme, like several others over the past decade, will make immigration more expensive for deportees.
"One of the main reasons is to drive up the cost of crossing again, to break the relationship between the migrants and their `polleros,' or traffickers, who typically include several tries in the prices they quote," said Claudia Smith of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, a migrants advocacy group based in Oceanside.
"It remains to be seen what percentage of the thousands caught at the border each week will opt for a free ride home," said Wayne Cornelius, professor and immigration expert at the University of California at San Diego. "But bus tickets are cheap in Mexico, and even from the southern part of the country it should cost only about $100 and take two or three days for the average migrant to get back to the border."
Critics say previous repatriation programs have failed because they are costly and it could not be proved that they discourage repeat border crossings. The United States has approved $13 million for the current program to run through September.
"Determined, economically motivated migrants will not be deterred from trying again until they succeed," Cornelius said.
Smith of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation said she was concerned that migrants who opted to go on the airlift would become subject to "criminal re-entry" charges, a felony, if they are detained again.
U.S. and Mexican authorities took months to agree on the program. Before the migrants boarded the Air Mexicana flight, they were informed by Mexican consular officials in Tucson that the repatriation was voluntary, Mexican officials said.
The Foreign Ministry here said in a statement that Mexico and the United States had agreed to the "deep repatriation" scheme to "avoid (migrant) deaths and abuses committed by human traffickers."
By some estimates, Mexicans represent up to 95 percent of all illegal crossings in the Southwest border region.
In the Border Patrol's Tucson district alone, some 2,300 Mexicans have been detained every day since March when enforcement was tightened, said a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security.
Arizona's lightly patrolled desert has become the favored point of entry for migrants and the human traffickers who shepherd them since the Border Patrol's Operation Gatekeeper along San Diego County's border in 1995 made crossing there tougher.
But the shift to Arizona carries enormous risks for migrants especially during summer months when desert temperatures exceed 100 degrees. But migrant advocates say that the high death rate among border crossers shows that migrants are willing to accept the risks.
MEXICO CITY -- The first repatriation flight of Mexicans caught illegally crossing the Arizona border landed here Monday evening, kicking off a new deportation program that could return thousands of border crossers deep into Mexico.
U.S. officials say using planes to ferry Mexicans home -- rather than dropping them off at the border -- would keep migrants away from smugglers and discourage repeated attempts at sneaking back into the United States.
But 20-year-old Hector Dimas, among the 138 migrants who disembarked from a chartered Air Mexicana flight, said the program would not squash his dream to return to work in the United States.
"I will be going back in 15 days," said Dimas, who has worked in Dallas as a construction worker for the last four years. "I need to work. The jobs in Mexico don't pay anything."
Seven of eight deportees interviewed within a half hour period Monday said they would cross the border soon.
"I'll try again in a month," said 34-year-old Juan Mora, who left behind his wife and two young children in Richardson, Texas, to visit relatives in Mexico. The landscape worker had made four successful border crossings until this weekend when he was arrested by U.S. border agents.
Like Mora, the migrants who arrived here Monday agreed to leave a federal detention facility in Tucson, Ariz., and take the free flight home.
The chartered flights cost U.S. taxpayers $28,000 each and will return up to 300 migrants daily. By Thursday, the repatriation operation will include direct daily flights from Tucson to Guadalajara, as well as to Mexico City. Migrants electing to leave their detention facility will be given bus vouchers to take them from the airports to their hometown.
U.S. officials have pledged to avoid the use of shackles, restraints and handcuffs in transporting the returning migrants. On Monday, the returning migrants reported that they were provided with a meal of spinach pasta and soft drinks during the three-hour flight.
U.S. and Mexican officials say they hope that the joint "voluntary repatriation" program would reduce the numbers of migrant deaths in the brutal heat of the Arizona desert this summer.
Mexican officials reported that 422 people died last year trying to enter the United States through California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Arizona accounted for the most fatalities. Through June 21, at least 148 Mexicans have died along the Southwest border this year with the hottest summer months still ahead.
While acknowledging the program may save lives, migrant advocates say the U.S. government is motivated by more than good deeds, noting that the U.S. Border Patrol has recently launched an aggressive campaign to round up illegal migrants.
Agency officials say they hope that the new repatriation scheme, like several others over the past decade, will make immigration more expensive for deportees.
"One of the main reasons is to drive up the cost of crossing again, to break the relationship between the migrants and their `polleros,' or traffickers, who typically include several tries in the prices they quote," said Claudia Smith of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, a migrants advocacy group based in Oceanside.
"It remains to be seen what percentage of the thousands caught at the border each week will opt for a free ride home," said Wayne Cornelius, professor and immigration expert at the University of California at San Diego. "But bus tickets are cheap in Mexico, and even from the southern part of the country it should cost only about $100 and take two or three days for the average migrant to get back to the border."
Critics say previous repatriation programs have failed because they are costly and it could not be proved that they discourage repeat border crossings. The United States has approved $13 million for the current program to run through September.
"Determined, economically motivated migrants will not be deterred from trying again until they succeed," Cornelius said.
Smith of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation said she was concerned that migrants who opted to go on the airlift would become subject to "criminal re-entry" charges, a felony, if they are detained again.
U.S. and Mexican authorities took months to agree on the program. Before the migrants boarded the Air Mexicana flight, they were informed by Mexican consular officials in Tucson that the repatriation was voluntary, Mexican officials said.
The Foreign Ministry here said in a statement that Mexico and the United States had agreed to the "deep repatriation" scheme to "avoid (migrant) deaths and abuses committed by human traffickers."
By some estimates, Mexicans represent up to 95 percent of all illegal crossings in the Southwest border region.
In the Border Patrol's Tucson district alone, some 2,300 Mexicans have been detained every day since March when enforcement was tightened, said a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security.
Arizona's lightly patrolled desert has become the favored point of entry for migrants and the human traffickers who shepherd them since the Border Patrol's Operation Gatekeeper along San Diego County's border in 1995 made crossing there tougher.
But the shift to Arizona carries enormous risks for migrants especially during summer months when desert temperatures exceed 100 degrees. But migrant advocates say that the high death rate among border crossers shows that migrants are willing to accept the risks.
Comment