Border crossers moving from Arizona deserts toward California

August 7, 2006

Border crossers moving from Mexico over the U.S. border are moving away from the Arizona deserts to the Mexico-California border. The number of immigrants illegally crossing the California-Mexico border is increasing as enforcement is cracking down in Arizona.

Border Patrol arrest statistics confirm the movement. Overall arrests have fallen just 3 percent since the beginning of the federal fiscal year in October, but they are up sharply in some places, including the San Diego area.

It's known as the water-balloon effect: Squeeze one spot and illegal immigration will bulge elsewhere along the 1,952-mile frontier.

In the early 1990s, San Diego was overrun by border crossers. Hundreds at a time stormed the world's busiest border crossing, paralyzing motorists on Interstate 5. Migrants waltzed freely over to vendors who catered to them in nearby canyons.

But a crackdown launched in 1994 pushed many migrants away from the border's two largest cities and into Arizona's mountains and deserts. Total arrests ebbed and flowed over the last decade, but changed little: 1.3 million in 1995 versus 1.2 million in 2005.

Arrests in the Border Patrol's largest Arizona sector at Tucson are down 9 percent to 345,973 since October compared to the previous year, though it is still the busiest corridor. Meanwhile, arrests rose 19 percent to 175,324 between the two sectors that span all but a few miles of California's border with Mexico.

The recent arrest spike in and around San Diego comes as the Border Patrol grows from 11,800 agents now to 18,000 by the end of 2008. That force will be supported by up to 6,000 National Guard troops.

Skeptics say that no matter how many agents there are or where they are positioned, the rush of border crossers would continue as long as jobs were easy to get.

The migrants cross in rugged terrain east of San Diego with its 1.3 million people. The mountains and canyons are scorching in summer and freezing in winter. Unlike Arizona, tall trees and dense chaparral offer shade and hiding places. It is not an easy place to patrol.

Border crossers hop off a bus or taxi somewhere outside the city on a short trip from Tijuana, a city of 1.2 million people whose airport and bus station teem with smugglers looking for business.

Many migrants rest at Tijuana's red-light district hotels before the trek, which lasts at least two days. Drivers wait for them on the U.S. side to take them to a safe house.

It costs $1,600 to be guided through the mountains near Tecate, typically in groups of four or five men, up from about $300 in the early 1990s. That inflation reflects how much harder it has become since the U.S. government tightened the noose in urban areas.