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 Editorials | At Issue | April 2006 
Deportation of Kids Soars
 Mark Stevenson - AP
A growing number of children are attempting to enter the U.S. illegally.
The number of children deported from Arizona after U.S. agents caught them crossing the border illegally or found them in the desert more than doubled in the first three months of 2006, Mexico´s Interior Secretariat said on Friday.
Most deportees are simply released by U.S. authorities at border crossings, but children are handed over directly to Mexico´s child-welfare agency, giving Mexican authorities a much more precise count.
From January through March, Mexican authorities took charge of 3,289 deported minors at border crossings in the state of Sonora, across from Arizona, more than double the 1,566 deported in the same period of 2005.
The Interior Secretariat statement did not give a reason for the increase in deportations of the children - who ranged in age from a few months to 17 - many of whom were found crossing on foot, alone or in the company of non-relatives.
However, some border analysts say they have witnessed what appears to be a general migrant rush to reach the United States. They say the migrants appear to be motivated by immigration bills under discussion in the U.S. Congress that could legalize some illegal migrants and increase border security.
In south-central Arizona, the busiest migrant-smuggling area, total detentions by the U.S. Border Patrol rose by more than 26 percent from Oct. 1, 2005, through early April, totaling 105,803 compared with 78,024 for the same period a year earlier. Along the entire border, arrests are up 9 percent in the same period.
Francisco Loureiro, the manager of an immigrant shelter in Nogales, Sonora, said that in March, 2,000 migrants stayed at the shelter - 500 more than last year. Loureiro said he has not seen such a rush of migrants since 1986, when the United States allowed 2.6 million illegal residents to get U.S. citizenship. |
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