SERGIO BUSTOS
Gannett News Service

MEXICO CITY - Top Homeland Security Department officials and their Mexican counterparts completed two days of talks here yesterday but did not reach agreement on a proposed U.S. deportation program.
Under the controversial proposal, tens of thousands of illegal Mexican immigrants caught along the U.S.-Mexico border would be flown into the country's interior and repatriated there.

Instead, the two governments agreed to create a joint working group to explore ways to return Mexicans caught in border areas in Arizona and other places where most illegal immigrants cross into the United States.

Under a memorandum of understanding, the Mexican government pledged to "aid and guide" illegal immigrants to their homes.

"We are confident we can work out an agreement," Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told journalists yesterday.

Mexican Interior Minister Santiago Creel sounded less optimistic.

"It must be voluntary," he said of the proposed repatriation program. "Our constitution guarantees the free movement of people in our country. What we want is that human rights be respected."

The Bush administration has been negotiating with the Mexican government since last summer on returning Mexicans to cities farther from the U.S. border and closer to their homes.

Administration officials say a similar program was effective in the early 1990s in combating illegal immigration along the border near San Diego.

The administration strongly believes such a program would discourage Mexicans from illegally crossing into the country and would reduce migrant deaths along the Southwest border.

Last year, the federal government recorded a record number of migrant deaths - 139 - in the Arizona-Sonora border region.

Asa Hutchinson, undersecretary for border and transportation security at the Homeland Security Department, said he was encouraged by the progress of the talks with Mexico but acknowledged that repatriation "remains a sensitive issue" between the two countries.

Privately, administration officials said Mexico's commitment to making a repatriation program work is an "early test" of whether its government is prepared to help control illegal immigration.

The impasse between the two governments likely will prompt the Bush administration to resume its repatriation program, which does not require Mexico's cooperation. Hutchinson said the administration hasn't made a final decision.

In defending the program, administration officials point to the success of a monthlong pilot project carried out last year by the U.S. Border Patrol. Between Sept. 8 and Sept. 30, the agency transported more than 6,000 illegal immigrants by airplane from Arizona to four Texas cities - El Paso, Del Rio, Laredo and McAllen. The immigrants then were deported on the Mexican side of the border.

Only one migrant died attempting to cross the Arizona border while the program was in effect, compared with 10 during the same period the previous year.

And fewer than 80 migrants were caught trying to sneak back into the country through Texas, according to agency officials. U.S. officials don't know how many migrants successfully made it back into the United States after being deported.

The program wasn't cheap. Each round-trip flight from Arizona to Texas cost U.S. taxpayers $28,000. Texas lawmakers also claimed the federal government was dumping Arizona's immigration problem in their state.

Forty percent of arrests of illegal immigrants on the Southwest border are made in Arizona.

Mexico and the United States also agreed to cooperate in arresting and prosecuting human smugglers, fighting border violence, and speeding car and truck traffic along the border.

They will create new dedicated commuter lanes this year at Nogales; San Ysidro and Calexico, Calif.; and El Paso, Laredo, and Brownsville, Texas.

To improve truck traffic, the two countries will establish Free and Secure Trade lanes at Pharr and Brownsville, Texas; Calexico and Otay Mesa, Calif.; and Nogales.