Saturday, July 17, 2010

TRAGIC IMMIGRANT DEATHS ON OUR BORDER - When Will Mexico STOP Exporting Their Poor and Pregnant?

Immigrant deaths in Arizona desert soaring in July

By AMANDA LEE MYERS, Associated Press Writer Amanda Lee Myers, Associated Press Writer
Fri Jul 16, 8:59 pm ET

.PHOENIX – The number of deaths among illegal immigrants crossing the Arizona desert from Mexico is soaring so high this month that the medical examiner's office that handles the bodies is using a refrigerated truck to store some of them, the chief examiner said Friday.

The bodies of 40 illegal immigrants have been brought to the office of Pima County Medical Examiner Dr. Bruce Parks since July 1. At that rate, Parks said the deaths could top the single-month record of 68 in July 2005 since his office began tracking them in 2000.

"Right now, at the halfway point of the month, to have so many is just a very bad sign," he said. "It's definitely on course to perhaps be the deadliest month of all time."

From Jan. 1 to July 15, the office has handled the bodies of 134 illegal immigrants, up from 93 at the same time last year and 102 in 2008. In 2007, when the office recorded the highest annual deaths of illegal immigrants, 140 bodies had been taken there through July 15.

Parks said his office, which handles immigrant bodies from three counties, is currently storing roughly 250 bodies and had to start using a refrigerated truck because of the increase in immigrant deaths this month.

He said many of the bodies seem to be coming from the desert southwest of Tucson, where it tends to be hotter than eastern parts of the border or the Tucson metro area.

Authorities believe the high number of deaths are likely due to above-average and unrelenting heat in southern Arizona this month and ongoing tighter border security that pushes immigrants to more remote, rugged and dangerous terrain.

Erik Pytlak, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said Tucson's average nighttime lows in the first 15 days of July are the hottest for that period in recorded history.

If nighttime temperatures don't cool down enough, the human body doesn't get a break from the daytime heat, which has hit 109 degrees in recent days in southern Arizona.

"Instead of having one day of a lot of heat, you have day after day after day, and you have a steady stream of people in the desert — people start succumbing, unfortunately," Pytlak said.

He said if possible thunderstorms materialize over the weekend, that could lower temperatures. But if rain doesn't fall and there's cloud cover, the situation could get worse because clouds hold temperatures up at night, he said.

While the bodies that go the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office don't represent all the deaths on the Arizona border, the Border Patrol also is seeing the effects of the weather.

"It does seem like the heat is really having a pretty significant impact right now," Agent Colleen Agle said.

Agle did not have statistics for July but said agents have been seeing "quite a few" deaths that appear heat-related.

On Thursday, she said the Border Patrol responded to a call from a husband and wife from Mexico who were experiencing difficulties because of the heat. When agents got there, the 25-year-old man had died; his 22-year-old wife survived and will be taken back to Mexico.

"Unfortunately, (agents) just didn't get there in time," she said, adding that finding immigrants in distress is often extremely difficult because of the vast and treacherous terrain. "It's really sad when this happens. Even one death is too many for us."

Deaths among immigrants occur despite public service advertisements warning them of the dangers of the desert, and the efforts of humanitarian groups that man aid stations for immigrants in distress and 20 Border Patrol rescue beacons in remote areas of the desert that immigrants can activate if they need help.

Border Patrol statistics for the entire U.S.-Mexico border show that deaths among illegal immigrants peaked at 492 in fiscal year 2005 and declined every year until last fiscal year, when they rose to 422.

The Border Patrol says the agency rescued nearly 1,300 people last fiscal year.


The Mexican Invasion................................................
Mexico prefers to export its poor, not uplift them

March 30, 2006 edition

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0330/p09s02-coop.html

Mexico prefers to export its poor, not uplift them
At this week's summit, failed reforms under Fox should be the issue, not US actions.

By George W. Grayson WILLIAMSBURG, VA.

At the parleys this week with his US and Canadian counterparts in Cancún, Mexican President Vicente Fox will press for more opportunities for his countrymen north of the Rio Grande. Specifically, he will argue for additional visas for Mexicans to enter the United States and Canada, the expansion of guest-worker schemes, and the "regularization" of illegal immigrants who reside throughout the continent. In a recent interview with CNN, the Mexican chief executive excoriated as "undemocratic" the extension of a wall on the US-Mexico border and called for the "orderly, safe, and legal" northbound flow of Mexicans, many of whom come from his home state of Guanajuato. Mexican legislators share Mr. Fox's goals. Silvia Hernández Enriquez, head of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations for North America, recently emphasized that the solution to the "structural phenomenon" of unlawful migration lies not with "walls or militarization" but with "understanding, cooperation, and joint responsibility." Such rhetoric would be more convincing if Mexican officials were making a good faith effort to uplift the 50 percent of their 106 million people who live in poverty. To his credit, Fox's "Opportunities" initiative has improved slightly the plight of the poorest of the poor. Still, neither he nor Mexico's lawmakers have advanced measures that would spur sustained growth, improve the quality of the workforce, curb unemployment, and obviate the flight of Mexicans abroad. Indeed, Mexico's leaders have turned hypocrisy from an art form into an exact science as they shirk their obligations to fellow citizens, while decrying efforts by the US senators and representatives to crack down on illegal immigration at the border and the workplace. What are some examples of this failure of responsibility? • When oil revenues are excluded, Mexico raises the equivalent of only 9 percent of its gross domestic product in taxes - a figure roughly equivalent to that of Haiti and far below the level of major Latin American nations. Not only is Mexico's collection rate ridiculously low, its fiscal regime is riddled with loopholes and exemptions, giving rise to widespread evasion. Congress has rebuffed efforts to reform the system. Insufficient revenues mean that Mexico spends relatively little on two key elements of social mobility: Education commands just 5.3 percent of its GDP and healthcare only 6.10 percent, according to the World Bank's last comparative study. • A venal, "come-back-tomorrow" bureaucracy explains the 58 days it takes to open a business in Mexico compared with three days in Canada, five days in the US, nine days in Jamaica, and 27 days in Chile. Mexico's private sector estimates that 34 percent of the firms in the country made "extra official" payments to functionaries and legislators in 2004. These bribes totaled $11.2 billion and equaled 12 percent of GDP. • Transparency International, a nongovernmental organization, placed Mexico in a tie with Ghana, Panama, Peru, and Turkey for 65th among 158 countries surveyed for corruption. • Economic competition is constrained by the presence of inefficient, overstaffed state oil and electricity monopolies, as well as a small number of private corporations - closely linked to government big shots - that control telecommunications, television, food processing, transportation, construction, and cement. Politicians who talk about, much less propose, trust-busting measures are as rare as a snowfall in the Sonoran Desert. Geography, self-interests, and humanitarian concerns require North America's neighbors to cooperate on myriad issues, not the least of which is immigration. However, Mexico's power brokers have failed to make the difficult decisions necessary to use their nation's bountiful wealth to benefit the masses. Washington and Ottawa have every right to insist that Mexico's pampered elite act responsibly, rather than expecting US and Canadian taxpayers to shoulder burdens Mexico should assume.

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