More Border Patrol agents are on duty and migrant deaths drop, but effect on illegal entries unknown.

LUKE TURF

More Border Patrol agents are coming to Tucson daily as flights full of Mexicans are being sent home.

Two unmanned aerial vehicles are soaring over the U.S. Mexico border area, and apprehensions of illegal immigrants are soaring, too, the Border Patrol says.

According to the agency's statistics, deaths are down and rescues are up in the deadly West Desert corridor that stretches from Sasabe to the Yuma County line.

But it is difficult to quantify the results of Arizona Border Control, the government's boldest attempt yet to get control of the Mexican border - which will cost taxpayers more than $20 million this summer, said the agency's interim Tucson sector chief, Michael Nicley.

Increased illegal immigrant apprehensions and narcotic seizures and a decrease in border violence prove the effort that kicked off this summer is working, Nicley said.

But some land managers along the border southwest of Tucson say the illegal traffic seems the same, just with more agents on the ground.

At the eastern edge of the West Desert, the border town of Sasabe is a popular staging point for illegal entries. In Sasabe, Carlos Zozaya is a lawyer with Grupo Beta, a Mexican police force that patrols the border and warns migrants of crossing dangers.

Zozaya's agency has documented about 243,000 illegal entries staged from Sasabe since October, he said. According to Border Patrol statistics, 136,856 migrants have been caught sneaking into the country through the West Desert since the fiscal year began in October.

But the numbers don't include illegal entries into the West Desert staged in the border town of Sonoyta, near Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.

One place where a difference is acknowledged by an agency other than the Border Patrol is on the Tohono O'odham Nation.

On the nation, where most migrant deaths have occurred in the past few years and tribal police constantly deal with border-related issues, Police Chief Richard Saunders said the number of stolen vehicles seized from smugglers and the number abandoned on the reservation are down significantly.

"I wouldn't say that Border Patrol has been a success, I would say that law enforcement has made an impact," Saunders said. "Border Patrol hasn't been able to do it by themselves. Certainly we need each other."

A facility for the Border Patrol to process immigrants and for tribal police to use as a detention facility is in its final construction stages, Saunders said.

While things are looking better, the federal government cannot pull back the resources it has allocated to the operation if it wants to remedy the problem completely, he said.

"I think it's too soon to tell if the operation has effectively succeeded," Saunders said. "Time will tell."

At Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge to the east, Officer Drew Cyprian said not much has changed.

"It's a constant flow sometimes," Cyprian said of the seven miles of border the refuge shares with Mexico. "I haven't really noticed too big of a change from last year."

One of the agency's main responsibilities, deterring illegal entries, isn't easy to quantify, Nicley said.

"It's hard to measure the negative," he said, adding that intelligence indicates fewer people are staging illegal entries. "One aspect of what we're doing does not paint a true picture of what we're doing."

Other quantifiers, such as re-entries of immigrants already caught crossing the border illegally and the effectiveness of unmanned aerial vehicles, have yet to be determined, Nicley said.

On the western edge of Nicley's sector, in Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, workers see little change other than a stronger Border Patrol presence.

Curt McCasland, a wildlife biologist who spends his time along the 56 miles of border that Cabeza Prieta shares with Mexico, said two watchtowers put up by the Border Patrol to deter entries within the refuge seem to work well, but it's not slowing the refuge's overall illegal traffic.

"I think (traffic) is about where it was last year," McCasland said.

Next door to the east is Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, which has a 36-mile border with Mexico.

"The normal ongoing activity is still out there," said monument Superintendent Kathy Billings.

The only significant reduction in vehicle traffic has occurred where 11 miles of border were blocked with a new vehicle barrier, Billings said.