U.S. troop deployment cuts crossings from Mexico

Reuters

SAN LUIS, Arizona - Using troops to help secure the U.S. border with Mexico has cut the flow of illegal immigrants crossing north by more than 40 percent since June, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Tuesday.

President George W. Bush ordered 6,000 National Guard troops to the border in May as a stopgap measure to boost frontier security for two years while more Border Patrol officers are recruited.

Every year, many Mexicans risk their lives by trying to sneak across the border, looking to escape poverty. Millions of illegal Mexican immigrants who work in the United States send home billions of dollars each year to their families.

Chertoff, speaking at a news conference by a stretch of steel fence on the Arizona-Mexico border, said the number of illegal immigrants arrested crossing the border had fallen by between 40 and 55 percent in subsequent quarters.

"This is the kind of tangible indication of progress that the American people have been waiting for," Chertoff said beside a 15-foot (4.6-meter) barrier built by troops under Operation Jump Start.

"We are ... walking the walk and actually getting the tools on the border that the Border Patrol needs to do the job."