A press release by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol announced its annual numbers for fiscal year 2006, concerning undocumented immigrants.  Border Patrol arrests fell 8.4 percent from 1.2 million in the past year compared with 1.1 million last year.  The Homeland Security Department said this was the first decrease in arrests since 2003, and credit this statistic to stronger enforcement.  

"What we ideally would like to do is stop them from coming in the first place.  The extent that we see fewer crossing the border, that suggests that line of defense is working," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.  He attributed the increase in arrests to the addition of over 1,900 border patrol agents in the past year, as well as installation of fencing and electronic sensors.  

Additional statistics in the report also show that the U.S. government  

• deported 186,600 undocumented immigrants from the U.S. in the past year, a 10 percent increase from 2005.
• nearly tripled the number of fugitive operation teams from 18 to 50, as part of efforts to locate, apprehend and deport undocumented immigrants.
• seized over 1.3 million pounds of marijuana, a 13 percent increase from the previous year.

However, Chertoff stressed that border security will not be enough.  An important aspect of Bush’s immigration policy, a guest worker program, remains stalled in Congress.  "Without a temporary worker program, getting control of the border by the end of 2008 would be very, very difficult," Chertoff said.