SALT LAKE TRIBUNE July 4, 2006 Migrants, smugglers increasingly turn violent as U.S. clamps down By Nate Carlisle, The Salt Lake Tribune YUMA, Ariz. - The U.S. Border Patrol here has a statistic it uses to gauge its effectiveness: assaults against its agents.
And those assaults have doubled in the past year. The Border Patrol believes the attacks indicate how increased security has raised the level of frustration felt by the immigrants and smugglers of humans and illegal drugs.
"When business is good, no one wants to rock the boat," said Richard Hays, a spokesman for the Border Patrol in Yuma. "But when business is not good, when those loads are not getting through, when those shipments of marijuana are getting caught, they take it out on those responsible, and those are our agents."
Some question the Border Patrol's interpretation of the data, but the numbers suggest the U.S.-Mexican border is becoming a more dangerous place. As the United States increases the number of eyes watching its southern border, the pressure put on immigrants and smugglers could give them more incentive to commit violence or take deadly risks.
Assaults on border agents doubled in four years, according to the Border Patrol.
Immigrant deaths increased, too.
More agents: This boost in violence and death has come as the Border Patrol has increased its presence.
The Border Patrol's office in Yuma, which oversees 126 miles of international boundary, has doubled its manpower in the past year to about 700 agents, part of the U.S. government's effort to bolster border security.
Hays attributes many of the assaults on officers and deaths of migrants to smuggling rings and said a joint program between the U.S. and Mexican governments is designed to dismantle the rings on both sides of the border.
But for now, violence is common.
On June 6, on the same day Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano visited Utah National Guard troops helping erect a new wall in San Luis, Ariz., a Border Patrol agent about 16 miles away shot and wounded an immigrant in the arm. Hays said the agent tried to take about a dozen immigrants into custody when one tried pulling him into the Colorado River. The suspect has been charged with assaulting a federal officer.
The Border Patrol classifies assault as an action applied against an agent.
By that definition, the most common assault is rocks or other objects hurled from Mexico across the border. The projectiles don't have to strike an agent to be labeled an assault.
Corina Robison, a spokeswoman for the Border Patrol in Washington, D.C., said physical assaults against agents are common.
Robison described 90 percent of the migrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexican border as docile people just wanting a job.
"The 10 percent are the ones willing to do whatever it takes," she said.
On duty: T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing border agents, said the assaults typically are intended to disable or distract border agents so immigrants can move through that area.
"I've been rocked and shot at, but it just goes with the territory," said Bonner, who patrols in the San Diego area.
Bonner thinks the increased border security has encouraged more immigrants to seek out smugglers to help them into the United States. "We're seeing highly organized smuggling rings involved in not just trafficking contraband such as narcotics but much more involved in the trafficking of human beings," said Bonner.
Smugglers will sometimes use "their own little Army Corps of Engineers" to build sandbag bridges across the Colorado River and drive trucks across at night, Hays said. Smugglers also will contract out work like vehicle transportation and safe house operations in the United States, Hays said.
Higher charges: Making it tougher to cross is certain to force smugglers to boost their rates for sneaking people, drugs and other contraband north, border and immigration officials and border observers say. And last month, The Associated Press reported human smugglers in San Luis Colorado Río, Mexico, are charging customers $3,000 for a trip that was $2,000 just weeks ago.
David Spener, a professor at Trinity University in San Antonio who has studied immigration and smuggling, isn't sure tighter border controls will lead to more migrant deaths. Rather than just being pushed into the desert or hidden in vehicles, Spener said, immigrants might seek new routes such as boats or falsified documents.
Spener also said tighter controls might reduce the number of border crossings. If it's tougher to cross, Spener said, immigrants already in the United States might remain here rather than return home and try to return again.
"I think it's overly simplistic to say that it will create millions of dollars for smugglers," Spener said. "It will increase their revenues, but it also will increase their costs."
Mexico's part: Meanwhile, Robison said, the Mexican government has attempted to warn its citizens about the dangers of crossing the U.S. border through messages on radio stations telling migrants that their handlers consider them cargo and have little regard for them and that crossing in the desert can put them at the mercy of the heat and animals.
The Mexican government also is working with the U.S. government in a program called OASIS that targets smuggling - from the people in Mexico booking the trip for the crossers, to the truck drivers or guides to the safe house keepers, Hays said. OASIS started in August and Mexico's attorney general has 21 cases in various stages of prosecution.
"It gets worse before it gets better," Hays said.
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