ARTHUR H. ROTSTEIN

The arrival of triple-digit temperatures along Arizona's border with Mexico usually brings a spike in exposure deaths among immigrants trying to enter the country by walking across the desert.
Border Patrol officials hope this year may be different.
The number of illegal immigrants who have died this fiscal year is down, but there's also been a drop in the number of them caught entering the country. Border Patrol officials point to a lagging U.S. economy, a tough new state employer sanctions law on hiring illegal immigrants and more border guards as major factors in the decline.
Apprehensions along the Arizona border have dropped dramatically in the past year. Along the 260-mile Tucson sector, they dipped from about 260,000 in the first seven months of fiscal 2006, which began Oct. 1, to only about 203,000 in the opening months of fiscal year 2008.
The number of illegal immigrants taken into custody in the Yuma sector for the comparable period also has plunged, from 90,000 during the first seven months of fiscal 2006 to only 6,500 during the current fiscal year.
"There's not as much traffic as we had in the past," said Jesus Rodriguez, a spokesman for the patrol's 260-mile Tucson sector, the busiest sector in the nation. "And the fact that we have more agents out there, that's helping a lot as well."
Rodriguez and other Border Patrol officials also point to the continuing buildup of assets, from more agents to continuing improvements in infrastructure. Those include pedestrian and vehicle fencing, lights, cameras and sensors, drones and manned air patrols, along with emergency signal beacons placed in some of the most remote desert settings.
The lower number of immigrants has led to a decrease in deaths. From Oct. 1 through April 30, 61 immigrants died in Tucson sector deserts, seven fewer than for the same period in fiscal 2007. During the first seven months of fiscal 2006, 76 people died.
In the Yuma sector, four people have died this year, six perished in the same period during the previous fiscal year and 16 died through April 30 in 2006.
Historically, most of the deaths among immigrants are caused by exposure, although others die from vehicle and other accidents.
Still, a humanitarian group that places watering stations in the remote desert is putting even more water plastic barrels out along favored immigrant routes, saying that enforcement is pushing immigrants into even more remote and dangerous territory.
The humanitarian group, Humane Borders, started in 2001 with a pair of water stations intended to help prevent deaths among people crossing the tortuous Arizona desert. It now keeps 90 filled with water in locations immigrants travel heading north. The Rev. Robin Hoover, who founded the group, said it is setting records each week for water consumption, at 1,500 gallons a week.
He agreed that illegal immigration has dropped considerably, but said it is unclear by how much.
But those who are still coming across the border are being pushed into even more rugged areas as the Border Patrol beefs up its efforts, he said.
"You can have fewer people coming, and still have a lot of death," Hoover said. "The terrain is more treacherous, it takes longer to walk, it's more dangerous."
Hoover also said that while peak migration into Arizona from Mexico occurs in February and March, June and July rival each other for the peak number of deaths.
"June is always a stressful time for us, and bang, bang, bang" as temperatures soar above 100 degrees and people start dying, he said.
This week brought the first temperatures above 100 degrees across most of the state, hitting a record for the date in Phoenix of 109 degrees. And that worries Hoover.
"Water consumption is not a function of how many people there are in the desert," he said. "It's a function of temperature. And deaths are a function of temperature. And we're expecting a whale of a summer."