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1
Deaths during undocumented migration:
trends and policy implications in the new era of homeland security
Karl Eschbach
Jacqueline Hagan
Nestor Rodríguez
Presented at the
26th Annual National Legal Conference
on Immigration and Refugee Policy
Published in In Defense of the Alien, Vol. 26, pp. 37-52.
Washington, DC
April 2003
2
Border Death Project
The Center for Immigration Research at the University of Houston has been
conducting an ongoing study of deaths of undocumented migrants along the Southwest
border since 1995 through fieldwork and quantitative research (Eschbach, Hagan,
Rodriguez, Hernandez and Bailey, 1999; Eschbach, Hagan and Rodriguez 2001). The
fieldwork has involved interviews with Border Patrol agents, medical examiners, funeral
directors, local law enforcement agents, undocumented migrants and human rights
advocates. Through these interviews we have sought to understand both the number and
reasons for migrant deaths in each area along the border. The quantitative component
involves the systematic study of trends in undocumented deaths along the full border
using a standardized data source. We believe that together these two approaches provide
a comprehensive understanding of migrant deaths in recent decades. In this presentation
we discuss our findings in relation to the themes of the conference session, border
enforcement policy after September 11.
Failure of IRCA and continued undocumented immigration
To understand the emergence of concern about the deaths of undocumented
migrants in the middle 1990s, it is important to place the problem in the context of
immigration policy during this period. The dominant policy strategy during the 1990s
was a substantial increase in the effort expended by the United States to prevent illegal
entry through increased and targeted patrol of the Southwest border.
3
This border enforcement policy emerged in the wake of the failure of the
Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) to control undocumented
migration. Recall, IRCA attacked undocumented migration through a three-pronged
strategy: a legalization program, an employer sanction program, and a border
enforcement program. In the short run of a few years, IRCA did reduce the flow of
undocumented migrants by legalizing several million migrants engaged in circular flow
between the United States and Latin America, moving them into legal border crossing
channels. However, while IRCA temporarily changed the stock of undocumented
migrants through the legalization program, in the long run it did not change the basic
dynamic of undocumented migration to the United States. By the 1990s, migration flows
had returned to their pre-IRCA levels.
The Gatekeeper Complex
The response to the failure of IRCA has been a progressive increase in the
resources devoted to border control. Some of these increases were mandated under the
terms of IRCA, and began in the late 1980’s. Most were ushered in the 1990s. Resources
devoted to border enforcement were dramatically increased. The annual budget for
enforcement operations increased sevenfold between 1980 and 1995, and then tripled
between 1995 and 2001. It currently exceeds $2.5 billion (Reyes, Johnson, and
Swearingen, 2002), The number of Border Patrol agents along the southwest border more
than doubled between FY 1993 to FY 1999, from roughly 3,400 to 7,200 (Andreas 2001).
The new policy initiative also included a huge influx of new technological resources such
4
as night vision cameras and ground sensors, along with the construction of new physical
barriers along the border. In the San Diego sector alone, for example, the length of border
fencing has more than doubled since 1994 (Andreas, 2000). Indeed, the Congressional
Research Service reported that roughly $3.3 billion has been invested on the Border
Patrol since 1994 (cited in Suro, 1998:3).
The Border Patrol deployed these additional resources in the most popular urban
crossing locations in a series of highly publicized border control operations. Operation
Blockade (later renamed Hold-the-Line) was implemented in El Paso in 1993, followed
the next year by Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego. Subsequent years saw the extension
of intensive border control to other stretches of the border. We call the border control
efforts of this period the “Gatekeeper Complex,” named for the largest and most visible
of the border control operations.
The Gatekeeper Complex had the intended purpose of raising the cost of
migration by closing off the easy and well established crossing channels. Since El Paso
and San Diego were adjacent to the largest border cities in northern Mexico (Juarez and
Tijuana), transportation services to these locations within Mexico were plentiful. When
they got to the border, migrants were implicitly aided by the large number of other
persons trying to cross at the same places, which tended to overwhelm Border Patrol
resources (Espenshade, Baraka and Huber, 1997). The proximity to urban areas meant
that migrants could receive assistance from and blend to these cities to plan the next leg
of their northbound journey. Networks of alien smugglers were well established in these
cities. In the stretch from San Diego to Los Angeles, attempts by the Border Patrol to
5
control transit up Interstate 5 corridor from San Diego to Los Angeles had to contend
with the fact that this Interstate is among the most heavily traveled in the country.
By initially concentrating enforcement on the most used crossing points, the
Border Patrol intended to deny these relatively easy corridors to the migrants, redirecting
those who would still try to smaller secondary cities. The extension of increased
enforcement to secondary cities was intended to increasingly redirect undocumented
migration flows out of urban areas into the surrounding countryside. Because there were
relatively few roads leading away from the border in many of these rural areas, the
Border Patrol could in these areas control flow on the highways using a combination of
fixed checkpoints and mobile patrols. The Border Patrol could then deploy additional
agents and technological aids to “cut for sign” of northbound intruders. The length of
these cross country journeys--sometimes taking more than 50 miles on the United States
side of the border alone—gave the Border Patrol more time to apprehend migrants than in
urban settings.
It was the expressed hope of the INS officials who designed the new enforcement
policies of the 1990s that the intensified and targeted control would discourage many
would-be migrants from even attempting the journey because of the additional physical
difficulty, and the increased financial and psychological costs of the northbound journey.
New technologies and laws that increased the penalties faced by migrants who
were apprehended during an unauthorized entry accompanied these increases in resources
devoted to border control. The penalty that had long been paid by the person apprehended
while attempting an unauthorized entry had been voluntary return to the country of
6
origin. The implementation of new "IDENT" technology created and maintained a
database of biometric identifiers that allowed the Border Patrol to identify repeat entrants
and increase the penalty to prison time for some.
Increasing dangers to migrants?
Almost as soon as the plans for the Gatekeeper Complex became public, migrant
advocates expressed their fear that the collateral damage from this enforcement initiative
would be increased dangers and risk of death for the migrants. The rural terrain to which
migrants were being redirected exposed them to increased risk. As the probability of
apprehension and the legal penalties associated with undocumented migration went up,
the impulse to take dangerous risks through more dangerous concealment strategies to
avoid capture also went up. So too did the incentive to engage in either high-speed flight
or violence in response to an imminent apprehension.
For its part, the INS did not contest the idea that there were dangers associated
with the redirection of undocumented migration to rural areas. INS officials made several
responses to these allegations. First, they observed that the migrants themselves were
responsible for these increased risk since undocumented entry is a crime in the United
States. Second, they pointed to professional alien smugglers—the so-called coyotes-- as
the principal villains, by encouraging and sometimes misleading migrants to take
unnecessary risks. Third, they observed that the border was already dangerous before the
implementation of the concentrated enforcement campaign, especially in the out-of-
control San Diego crossing corridor.
7
When some of the predictions about the dangers to migrants in the restructured
border environment proved true, the Border Patrol implemented the Border Safety
Initiative Program in 1998, in cooperation with the Mexican government. This initiative
included increased deployment of emergency medical service (EMS) units, increased
EMS training for agents, increased supply if life-saving equipment in Border Patrol
vehicles, an emphasis on patrolling-for-rescue as well as patrolling for apprehension,
particularly during dangerously hot weather. Another part of this initiative was an
advertising campaign in Mexico and Central America warning potential migrants of
border dangers.
What did the Gatekeeper Complex accomplish?
There is little evidence that the Gatekeeper Complex has reduced undocumented
migration and the unauthorized labor supply (Hanson and Spilimbergo 1999; Reyes et al
2002; GAO 1997; 1999; 2001). Many critics of border enforcement policies in this period
suggest that the primary result of increased danger and expense of illegal border crossing
has been to decrease cross-border circulation by lengthening the time spent in the United
States by undocumented persons. (Kossoudji, 1992; Espenshade et al, 1997; Massey,
Durand, and Malone, 2002; Reyes et al, 2002). The 1990s saw large increases in the
stock of undocumented immigrants living in the United States. These increases are
estimated to be about half a million per year. The undocumented population in the United
States has been estimated at about 8.5 million in 2000 (Passel and Fix, 2001).
8
Although there is no evidence to show that the Gatekeeper Complex
accomplished its policy goals, there is no doubt it dramatically restructured the
geography of border crossing. In particular, the massing of enforcement resources and
construction of effective fencing in the extreme western part of San Diego County west
of Otay Mountain and close to the San Ysidro port of entry substantially reduced illegal
migration through this formerly popular migration corridor.
Figure 1 shows the magnitude of this restructuring by showing the changing
distribution of apprehensions to different Border Patrol operational sectors along the
Southwest border from 1985 to 2002. Apprehensions are an imperfect measure of the
location of migration flows, because the probability of apprehension (and hence the
relationship between apprehension totals and successful migration attempts) varies at
different places on the border. However, the patterns in apprehensions are so striking that
they give a clear indication of what happened. The percentage of apprehensions in the El
Paso and San Diego border sectors peaked at 70 in 1992. By 1998, this figure had
dropped to less than 25 percent. At the same time, the percentage of apprehensions
increased in the area from Imperial County California through Arizona.
Insert Figure 1 Here
By the summer of 1998, the western San Diego area had become so well
controlled that middle class housing was under development in areas on the United States
side of the border that had formerly been overrun by undocumented border crossing. In
the same year, however, Border Patrol officials in Calexico estimated that the ratio of
"got-aways" to apprehensions in that area may have been as high as ten-to-one, because
9
tens of thousands of undocumented migrants had shifted to this area, while the Border
Patrol did not markedly increase resources. By 2000, increased resources devoted to
border enforcement in the Calexico area had shifted flows further eastward yet, making
the Arizona desert the primary terrain where unauthorized entries are attempted
Within the border areas, unauthorized migration increasingly shifted to the open
countryside surrounding the relatively well-controlled border cities. In any case, border
cities in Arizona are relatively small. Even if an undocumented migrant successfully
entered an Arizona border city such as Nogales, Douglas, or Naco, he or she would still
need to traverse the parched landscape northward to Tucson or Phoenix. These open areas
have become the new playing field for the sometimes deadly game of cat-and-mouse
played by the undocumented migrants and United States border control personnel.
How did the Gatekeeper Complex change the deaths of undocumented migrants
along the border?
The Gatekeeper Complex has had limited success from the point of view of its
policy goals, but what has been the effect on death and danger to migrants? The question
is not as straightforward as at first appears. Government officials did not keep border
wide records of the deaths of undocumented migrants until 1998, when the Border Patrol
began to record deaths occurring in furtherance of an illegal entry in border areas in the
United States. The Mexican government also began to tabulate deaths of its own citizens
attempting undocumented entry in the 1990s. The Mexican series includes deaths in near-
border areas in northern Mexico, as well as deaths in the United States. The series is
10
aggregated from reports assembled from the network of Mexican consulates in the border
region. It is marred in its early years, by inconsistent coverage of different border areas.
Coverage of the San Diego border region is complete dating from the early 1990s, but
was incomplete through most of the decade in other areas, and especially in Texas.
The vital registration database for the United States is a useful alternative source
of data about longer term trends in deaths during undocumented migration. This source is
intended to be a complete registry of all deaths occurring within the United States. Death
records do not contain any information about the immigration status of decedents, or
activity at time of death. Thus these data cannot be used to generate a definitive count of
deaths during undocumented migration. Vital registration death data do contain
information about decedents’ place of residence and citizenship, as well as information
about underlying cause of deaths. Using this information we can construct a data series
for accidental deaths of foreign transients (foreign-born, non-U.S. residents) and for
unidentified bodies in near-border counties. Comparison of the Border Patrol counts of
undocumented migrant deaths with the death data supplied by the San Diego medical
examiner and Imperial County coroner show that the large majority of the accidental
deaths of foreign transients identified in the vital registration data for near border
counties do in fact occur to undocumented migrants attempting to enter without
inspection. Thus the shaded area of overlap in figure 2 is large, and the vital registration
data provide a useful data source to learn about longer term trends in the numbers and
causes of deaths occurring in the course of undocumented migration (Eschbach, Hagan,
Rodriguez 2001).
Insert Figure 2 Here
11
Trends in deaths
Figure 3 shows the trends in deaths that we compiled at the University of Houston
from vital registration sources (1985 to 2000). We extend this series from to 2002 using
Border Patrol counts. The number of deaths reported follows a u-shaped curve. In the late
1980s, the number of foreign transient deaths usually exceeded 300, and peaked in 1988
at 355. Thereafter, the number of deaths fell to 180 in 1993 and 1994. After 1994 the
number of deaths started to increase again, peaking in 2000 at 370. Border Patrol counts
for 2001 and 2002 show a small decrease in the number of deaths in those years
compared to 2000.
Insert Figure 3 Here
As Figure 4 shows, the leading causes of deaths of foreign transients in the border
region across the period were drowning, motor vehicle accidents, auto-pedestrian
accidents, deaths from exposure to environmental heat and cold, and deaths from
unknown causes. (Unknown cause deaths pertain primarily to bodies found as skeletal
remains in open areas.) In considering these distributions, it is important to keep in mind
that not all deaths occur during an undocumented entry. For example, deaths from
homicides likely include a large number of undocumented aliens, but a substantial
portion could pertain to persons who were engaged in drug trafficking or other illegal
activities (Eschbach, Hagan, Rodriguez 2001).
Insert Figure 4 Here
Figure 5 shows that there were several important changes in the causes of deaths
of foreign transients in the border region. Two causes, homicide deaths and auto-
12
pedestrian accidents, peaked in 1988 and declined thereafter. Since 1994, both causes
together have contributed about 50 deaths a year. Deaths from exposure to environmental
heat, cold and dehydration declined from the middle 1980s to the middle 1990s before
increasing sharply.
Insert Figure 5 Here
. The large majority of auto-pedestrian deaths occurred in the San Diego area. This
cause of death was substantially reduced before the implementation of Operation
Gatekeeper in 1994. Auto-pedestrian deaths had occurred primarily in the vicinity of the
Border Patrol’s checkpoint on Interstate 5 at San Clemente. These deaths declined after
the fencing of the Interstate median in the early 1990s made it difficult for northbound
migrants to cross the southbound lanes on foot south of the checkpoint.
Like auto-pedestrian deaths, homicide deaths occurred primarily in San Diego
County. The number of deaths began to drop rapidly in the early 1990s. Investigation of
these deaths in the archives of the San Diego Union-Tribune shows that a few of the
deaths involved the victimization of a migrant worker crossing the San Diego border.
Many more were related to disputes among drug-traffickers. The number of homicides
declined markedly and has remained low in the San Diego border areas after it was
brought under control by Operation Gatekeeper. The shifting of undocumented migration
to other border areas did not result in an increase in homicides to the areas were
undocumented migration was shifting.
The final noteworthy change in cause-specific death totals was a sharp increase
after 1993 in deaths from environmental heat, cold, exposure and dehydration. There
13
were 33 such deaths reported in 1985, declining to just 6 deaths border wide from these
causes in 1992 and 1993. This cause of death has skyrocketed since 1995, to 99 in 2000.
Data from the Border Patrol and the Mexican Consulates show that this cause of death
has remained high since 2000. This figure understates the number of deaths from
environmental causes, because many bodies may remain undiscovered in open areas
throughout the region.
Motor vehicle accidents and drowning are both leading causes of deaths. Both
causes of death fluctuate in number throughout this period, with no overall pattern related
to changes in enforcement and crossing patterns. Our studies have shown that that the
majority of drowning deaths occur in the Rio Grande, and that water levels along that
river are more strongly associated with the number of drowning deaths than is the
changing location of border crossing. The migrants have been fortunate that extended
drought conditions in the Rio Grande basin through most of the 1990s have kept water
levels in the river at historic lows (Eschbach, Hagan and Rodriguez 2001).
In summary, the data partially confirm the fears of the human rights advocates
that the redirection of flows from urban to rural crossing points is increasing the danger
to migrants. It is now unambiguous that the redirection of migrant flows to the Sonoran
deserts of Arizona and eastern California, and to the ranchlands of South Texas, takes the
lives of perhaps 100 persons per year that we can document through vital registration
data, and an uncounted number of additional persons whose bodies have yet to be - and
perhaps may never be – discovered.
14
We should not overlook, however, that undocumented border crossing was
dangerous before the Gatekeeper Complex. Returning to Figure 5, we can see that in the
middle 1980s, drowning (mostly in the Rio Grande) was the leading cause of death for
undocumented migrants. Deaths from environmental causes were reported even in this
period. Moreover urban areas have their dangers, as shown by the chaos near the border
and on the freeways in San Diego County in the late 1980s.
Had the increases in flow associated with the peso devaluation in 1995 all been
channeled through the San Diego and El Paso areas, we are not sure that the resulting
death totals would have been markedly lower than what was observed, though the cause
and location of death would have been different. While the Gatekeeper Complex
probably did result in an increase in the number of migrant deaths, undocumented
migration across the Southwestern border has always been dangerous. Resurrecting the
status quo in the days before Operation Gatekeeper is not a solution to the dangers of
undocumented border crossing.
Enforcement after September 11.
The terrorist attacks of September 11 had immediate ramifications for United
States border policy. The most immediate effect was to slam shut the door that had been
opened to the adjustment of the legal status of millions of undocumented Mexicans in the
United States, and perhaps to the creation of a new guest worker program in the United
States. To be sure, it was by no means clear what policy would have emerged from the
discussions about a more liberal immigration policy that Presidents Fox and Bush had
opened in the months before 9/11. It is clear that in the aftermath of the attacks, such a
15
liberalization was taken off of the table for the time being, and restrictionist voices gained
strength in public debates.
In the Gatekeeper era the mantra of the restrictionists was that we needed to
control the borders against “alien and drug smuggling.” The new threat of foreign
terrorists after September 11 added a third and very powerful justification for increased
vigilance at our borders, despite the fact that none of the September 11 terrorists are
known to have entered illegally across the Southwestern border. In a climate in which
legal migrants faced suspicions and restrictions in the name of anti-terrorist counter
measures, unauthorized migrants could expect little sympathy.
The ineffectiveness of attempts to halt undocumented migration across the
Southwest border stands in odd symbolic juxtaposition to the new claims that the United
States will seal its border against terrorist entry. Conventional wisdom is that
undocumented migrants always successfully run the gauntlet of border control or die
trying. This fact sits uneasily next to the somewhat different challenge of control of the
border against terrorism. In opening the new Department of Homeland Security,
Secretary Ridge promised to “seal our borders from terrorists and their cargo.” Yet if a
circular flow of more than a million undocumented migrants can make the journey each
year, how well sealed can the border be against a threat that is potentially devastating in
its consequences if just a single terrorist manages to enter?
On the ground at the border itself, September 11 has not changed the basic
dynamic of the cat-and-mouse game played out between undocumented migrants and
United States border enforcement personnel. The number of apprehensions did fall
16
sharply after September 2001, continuing a downward trend that had begun the previous
year. Increased border enforcement, immigrant fear of increased Border Control in the
context of 9/11, changing Border Patrol strategies, and slow-downs in the United States
economy likely all have contributed to the decline.
In the face of declining apprehensions, the number of deaths of undocumented
migrants along the border reported by the Border Patrol continues to exceed 300, which
is substantially higher than the death totals from the middle 1990s. In 2003, the Arizona
border continues to be the primary place where undocumented entry is attempted and
contested. Migrant death from heat and dehydration remains a tragic concomitant of the
border enforcement game in the arid deserts of the border region.
After September 11, national security concerns are increasingly intertwined with
border enforcement policy. It is unlikely that either Congress or the general public would
agree to reduce border enforcement to the level seen before the Gatekeeper Complex was
implemented. For this reason, calls to “Stop Operation Gatekeeper”—implicitly to return
to the enforcement policies of the 1980s—increasingly fall on deaf ears.
As mentioned above, simply rolling back enforcement policy to before
Gatekeeper would not in any case have eliminated the deaths of undocumented migrants.
Deaths will stop when undocumented flows are regulated through legal rather than illegal
channels. Evidence for this is provided by the lull in deaths that we observed in the late
1980s and the early 1990s. The most plausible explanation for this decline was the
temporary reduction in the circular flow of undocumented migrants because IRCA
legalized more than two million immigrants. This took the migrants out of the rivers and
17
deserts of the border region, and put them onto commercial buses, eliminating most of the
dangers associated with attempted unauthorized entry.
The policy alternative confronting the United States today is not between a lax
and a stringent effort to control the border, but rather between a policy that acknowledges
the dependency of the American economy on foreign labor and a policy that continues to
keep a large portion of this labor in undocumented status. It is likely that for the
foreseeable future the quantity of border enforcement effort expended will exceed
historical levels. But increased control of unauthorized entry is not inconsistent with
increased authorization of legalized entry. The combination of increased authorized entry
and increased border control may be the most effective policy for national security, to
accomodate the labor demands of the United States economy, and to reduce the toll of
migrant death at the Southwest border.
September 11 may have created a new willingness of the American public to
implement new technologies for the control of undocumented labor supply at the place of
employment rather than at the border. These technologies include increased use of
identification with non-duplicatable biometrics, together with the real time query of
databases that report the legal status of the worker or job applicant. These technologies, if
used, will probably make possible a more effective control of undocumented labor supply
than is possible through the cat-and-mouse game currently played out between the Border
Patrol and the undocumented migrants at the border. One implication of this effectiveness
is that the United States may be forced to make its decisions about the use of unskilled
foreign labor more transparent. If the best evidence is that more eight million illegal
immigrants are a functioning part of the labor force of the United States, it is likely that
18
policies that would effectively deport this segment of the labor force could create
significant dislocations in the American economy.
Regulating foreign labor supply through legal channels has several advantages
with respect to the imperative for national security. One of the advantages is that under a
regulated system authorized migrants present themselves for inspection at the border, in
contrast to the present system of clandestine entry. A second advantage to regulating the
labor supply through legal channels is that this would put an end to the substantial
financial costs associated with the current cat and mouse game along the border.
Moreover, it would release resources for the Border Patrol and other agencies in the new
Department of Homeland Security to concentrate their efforts on the interdiction of
diseases, drugs and terrorists, rather than on ineffective efforts to disrupt labor flows.
Among the most important benefit of regulating migration through legal channels is that
such a policy would put an end to the tragic and needless deaths of undocumented
migrants.
19
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2000 Border Games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide. Ithaca, New York: Cornell
University Press.
Andreas, P.
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Global Human Smuggling: Comparative Perspectives. David Kyle and Rey
Koslowski, eds. Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press.
Eschbach, K., J. Hagan, N. Rodriguez, R. Hernandez and S. Bailey
1999 “Death at the Border,” International Migration Review 33(2): 430-454.
Eschbach, K., J. Hagan and N. Rodriguez
2001 “Causes and Trends in Migrant Deaths along the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1985-1998,”
Center for Immigration Research, University of Houston. .
Espenshade,T.J., J.L. Baraka, and G.A. Huber
1997 “Implications of the 1996 Immigration Reforms,” Population and Development
Review 23(4):769-801.
Hanson, G. and A. Spilimbergo
1999 “Illegal Immigration, Border Enforcement, and Relative Wages: Evidence from
Apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico Border.” American Economic Review 89:1337-
1357.
Kossoudji, S.
20
1992 “Playing Cat and Mouse at the U.S.-Mexico Border,” Demography, 29(2):159-180.
Massey, D., S., J. Durand, and N.J. Malone
2002 Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic
Integration. New York, New York: Russel Sage Foundation
Passel, J.S. and Fix, M. E
2001 “U.S. Immigration at the Beginning of the 21st Century,” Testimony before the
Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims Hearing on “The U.S. Population and
Immigration,” Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives, Urban
Institute, Washington, DC, 2001.
United States General Accounting Office
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Evaluation Needed. GAO/GAD-98-164, July 31. Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office.
United States General Accounting Office
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GAO/GGD-99-44, May 19. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
United States General Accounting Office
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Seven Years, Washington, D.C. U.S. Government Printing Office
Reyes, B., H.P. Johnson and R. Van Sweargen
2002 “Has Increased Border enforcement Reduced Unauthorized Migration?” Research
21
Brief, Public Policy Institute of California.
Suro, R.
1998 “Tightening controls and changing Flows: Evaluating the INS Border Enforcement
Strategy,” Research Perspectives on Migration 2(1). Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace.
22
Figure 1. Percentage of Apprehensions by Border Patrol Sector, 1985-2002
San Diego
El Paso
El Centro
Yuma
Tucson
Marfa
DelRio
Laredo
McAllen
0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%
70.0%
80.0%
90.0%
100.0%
1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
23
Figure 2. Vital registration deaths of foreign transients and undocumented migrants
24
Figure 3. Total number of deaths, 1985-2002
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
U Houston
Border Patrol
25
Figure 4. Deaths by Cause
Train4%
Drowning22%Suffocation
0%
Motor Vehicle17%
Homicide16%
All Other5%
Unknown12%
Environment12%
Pedestrian12%
26
Figure 5. Trends in death by cause and year
PedestrianHomicide
Environment
Unknown
Drowning
Motor Vehicle
TrainSuffocation
All Other
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000