Migrants' free return flights to end

Report: Program impossible to link to border deaths
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PHOENIX — Free flights to Mexico for illegal immigrants caught in Arizona will end on Sept. 30, and U.S. officials have not yet decided if the repatriation program will resume next summer.

Since July, the Department of Homeland Security has given more than 12,000 undocumented immigrants free flights into Mexico City as part of a three-year-old program federal officials have credited with saving lives in the Arizona desert.

However, a new Government Accountability Office report found no direct correlation between the number of border deaths and the repatriation program.

The GAO found it was "not possible to determine the program's impact on recidivism rates and deaths with certainty," adding that deaths fluctuate based on a number of factors including Border Patrol enforcement efforts.

Top Homeland Security officials have pledged to cut costs for the repatriation program, which has an annual price tag of about $15 million.

The U.S. Border Patrol made 1.1 million arrests last year, but only about 1 percent of undocumented immigrants took advantage of the free flights.