 BORDER ARRESTS DROP SHARPLY
The number of arrests of undocumented immigrants along the US-Mexican border has dropped substantially over the past six months, leading federal officials to hope that the long awaited results of Operation Gatekeeper have finally arrived. This week it was announced that the number of arrests during the first six years of fiscal year 2001, since last October, had dropped 24% from the same period the previous year.
What was so remarkable was that apprehensions all along the border dropped during this period. This was the first time this happened since the institution of Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego in 1994. During the first six months of fiscal year 2000 there were 856,228 arrests on the border, while in 2001 there were 653,140. In previous years, even when there was a decrease in the number of crossings in one sector they would increase in another.
Operation Gatekeeper and Operation Hold the Line, launched in 1993 in El Paso cut off two main migrant routes. Migrants did not stop coming however; they merely changed the places where they tried to cross. While arrests have been dropping in San Diego for the past few years, they have been rising in Arizona and other locations on the border. During the past six months, arrests in these areas have dropped also.
While it cannot yet be said that the decrease reflects an overall decrease in migration pressures, there are a number of theories behind it. One holds that increased border enforcement has finally paid off and that fewer people are attempting to cross the border without authorization. Another theory says that increased job growth and improved economic conditions in Mexico, along with a slowing US economy, have decreased the number of people seeking to come to the US. The US Border Patrol refuses to give credit to any single factor, saying that it is a variety of things.
Critics say that the decrease is due in large part to the fact that increase border enforcement has discouraged many undocumented immigrants from returning home.
The following chart outlines the number of arrests in each Border Patrol sector, and the reduction from the previous year. City | Arrests | % change from prior year | San Diego | 55,905 | -27 | El Centro | 93,892 | -22 | Yuma | 45,958 | -21 | Tucson | 240,390 | -22 | El Paso | 54,695 | -12 | Marfa | 5,817 | -23 | Del Rio | 61,244 | -32 | Laredo | 43,061 | -30 | McAllen | 52,178 | -27 | Total | 653,140 | -24 |
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