Customs claiming success

Immigrant captures, as expected, are down in Tucson sector, up elsewhere.

ARTHUR H. ROTSTEIN

The Associated Press

Illegal immigrant apprehensions in the Border Patrol's Tucson sector are down during the new fiscal year while those on its flanks have increased as expected, a spokesman said yesterday.

"The reduction of apprehensions so far this year in Arizona is a good indication that the enforcement strategy that we initiated is working," said Mario Villarreal, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Washington.

Apprehensions in the Tucson sector, the nation's busiest for several years, were down 15 percent over the first 33 days of fiscal 2006, Villarreal said. A total of 28,750 illegal immigrants were caught, compared to 33,950 for the same period in fiscal 2005.



The Tucson sector covers all but about the 50 westernmost miles of Arizona's 377-mile border with Mexico.

To its west, the Yuma sector had 9,950 apprehensions from Oct. 1 through Wednesday, 7 percent more than the 9,275 arrested over the same period a year earlier, Villarreal said.

Meanwhile, apprehensions in the El Paso, Texas, sector, including Deming, N.M., have shot up from 7,930 for the same period a year ago to 11,680 for the period that ended Wednesday, an increase of 47 percent.

The rise was expected, Villarreal said.

In March, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert Bonner predicted such a shift to the east and west of the Tucson sector's heavily trafficked west desert corridors in announcing the second phase of an initiative aimed at gaining operational control of the Arizona-Mexico border.

Bonner said officials anticipated that smugglers would shift operations toward El Paso and Yuma as the number of Border Patrol agents rose in the Tucson sector and more surveillance aircraft were added.

But Villarreal added that in anticipation of the shift, "We were already deploying additional resources" as well to the El Paso and Yuma corridors in fiscal 2005.