ARTHUR H. ROTSTEIN
The Associated Press

More than 400 people have died trying to cross the border illegally from Mexico in the past 11 months, surpassing previous records.
Of those people, 228 have died crossing through Arizona, outstripping previous annual records even before the federal fiscal year ends Sept. 30.

From Texas to California, a total of 415 people are known to have perished trying to enter the United States from Mexico - far higher than last year's total of 330 and surpassing the previous high mark of 383 set in 2000, said Mario Villarreal, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Washington, D.C.

Crackdowns in El Paso, Texas, and San Diego have funneled most migrant traffic along the Mexican border into Arizona over the past several years.

Record numbers of deaths are being recorded in both Border Patrol sectors that cover Arizona and in south Texas, Villarreal said.

In Arizona, nearly half the deaths have been heat-related, Border Patrol spokesmen said.

Some of the increase in numbers reflects a change in the way Tucson Border Patrol officials are counting the deceased. In late June, they began including some bodies or remains found by other law enforcement agencies but not previously counted.

Even accounting for the change, however, Arizona has recorded more deaths so far this year than in all of fiscal 2004, said Border Patrol spokesman Luis Garza.

Garza attributed the upswing in deaths to dramatic and "unprecedented heat," as well as another factor: an eastward shift by smugglers to a more mountainous and treacherous stretch of desert east of the Baboquivari Mountains and the Tohono O'odham Nation.

"It's here, and it's real, and hopefully people will be able to understand the need that our border's broken," said the Rev. Robin Hoover, founder of Tucson-based Humane Borders, an organization that places water in desert areas used heavily by illegal immigrants. "We've been pointing to the problems for so long along the border that our arms are tired."

For 39 straight days in June and July, southern Arizona broiled under temperatures above 100 degrees. Twenty illegal immigrants died in June, and 61 more perished during July, many heat-related, "so those two months were horrendous for us," Garza said.

Villarreal noted that many immigrants probably are physically stressed even before they cross into the United States.

"The smugglers are moving the groups laterally in Mexico and then crossing them in very desolate, remote places along the Southwest border," he said.

And he said smugglers frequently abandon those who become ill, injured or tired.

"And in many cases, individuals will perish in the desert," Villarreal said.