Tucson sector undercounted

Susan Carroll
Republic Tucson Bureau

TUCSON - Despite a highly publicized crackdown on the Arizona border, the statewide migrant death toll has topped an all-time record with 164 bodies or remains recovered since the start of the fiscal year, U.S. Border Patrol statistics show.

This summer, Border Patrol officials reported that deaths were down in the Arizona desert and particularly credited the multimillion-dollar Arizona Border Control Initiative, which added hundreds of agents, new equipment and updated technology.

But the agency did not disclose that the Tucson sector had changed its accounting method for migrant deaths. Departing from past practice, it excluded skeletal remains from the death numbers released to the media while still listing them in official reports to headquarters in Washington, D.C.

So, when officials said this week that the death toll for the sector stood at 118, they did not include 19 skeletal remains and said the figures showed a decline from the 136 deaths reported at this time last year. The complete Border Patrol data so far this year put the death toll at 137 for the Tucson sector, plus 27 in the Yuma sector, surpassing last year's 151. The fiscal year ends Sept. 30.

Acknowledging the record deaths Thursday, Border Patrol officials defended the crackdown, saying that agents in Tucson have arrested more than 470,000 undocumented immigrants this year and that fewer bodies have been found in the sector's deadly "west desert" area. They also said the discrepancy in the death toll was unintentional.

"I don't believe there was an intention to mislead . . . the public," said Michael Nicely, interim Tucson sector Border Patrol chief. "It looks as though we provided numbers that made the situation look more palatable than it is. I don't believe for a moment there was anything sinister involved, but I do understand . . . how it looks.

"Credibility means everything to us." He added that the Tucson office is investigating what happened.

Critics of the U.S. government's border strategy accused the agency of manipulating the data to minimize deaths and justify the price of the ABC initiative, estimated to be at least $23 million, excluding manpower costs.

The operation had exceeded its initial cost estimate of $10 million by the time Department of Homeland Security officials launched it in June. The next month, the government began offering Mexican migrants arrested in Arizona free flights to the interior of Mexico, a program that costs $13 million.

"We just remain really suspicious of the claims they make about how effective these programs are," said the Rev. Robin Hoover, president of Humane Borders, an organization that puts water stations in the desert for undocumented immigrants. "The public can't rely on the Border Patrol to provide comprehensive data. Therefore, all of their program evaluations of their own effectiveness and efficiency are called into question."

As part of the initiative, Homeland Security officials sent 200 agents, two unmanned drones and four additional helicopters to reinforce border control efforts in the Tucson sector, the most popular gateway in the nation for illegal crossings. The sector has accounted for more than 40 percent of the 1.09 million undocumented-immigrant arrests so far this year along the 1,950-mile Southwestern border.

The initiative was billed as a push to gain control of the Arizona border and reduce the migrant death toll in the state.

Nicely said he is convinced the infusion of resources and manpower in the Tucson sector has had an impact.

Migrant traffic is shifting, he said. Deaths in the Tucson sector's targeted "west desert" corridor are down, although fatalities are up in other parts of the state. As agents and resources have been concentrated in the Tucson sector, arrests to the west in Yuma have skyrocketed, up more than 70 percent compared with the same time last year.

"I don't believe deaths are the litmus test," Nicely said. "They certainly are an important gauge we can use to measure our effectiveness, but there are a lot of goals. I wouldn't be willing to call ABC a failure because the deaths are up.

"The goal is to move (migrants) out of here and not just to other parts of the border. We want to deter their entry."

The ABC initiative is scheduled to end Sept. 30, and officials have said there are no plans to extend it. Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson is expected to visit Tucson on Monday to assess the progress of the initiative.