Program goal to remove migrants from border

LUKE TURF

Seventy-seven Mexicans sit under misters behind a chain-link fence where they eat Burger King meals and await free airplane rides back into Mexico, courtesy of the U.S. government.
All of the men, women and children at the Border Patrol station in Tucson, including Leobaldo Franco Jarero, were caught sneaking over the border in southern Arizona.

With the Department of Homeland Security's pilot Interior Repatriation Program, U.S. officials hope to reduce the number of deaths of illegal immigrants by shipping them farther into Mexico and farther from smugglers eager to lead them on repeat trips through Arizona's deadly desert.

The program also aims to stem the flow of illegal immigrants at its source, the small towns scattered all over Mexico. Franco and others on the plane, border officials hope, will tell others that it's too difficult to cross.

Franco appears to be a success story in the government's strategy.

"I don't know if I can cross now; it's not like it was," said Franco, who came to the United States illegally 12 years ago and spent a year laying kitchen tile in San Diego. "I'm going to tell (friends and family) to think twice before they try to cross."

The pilot program, initiated this summer, carries steep costs to taxpayers: about $100,000 every day for two flights deep into Mexico. The program will cost between $13 million and $14 million by the time it ends Sept. 30.

The point of the trips, according to the U.S. Border Patrol, is to get illegal migrants away from the border, where they're traditionally dropped right back into the smugglers' hands. If they can't cross illegally again, they won't end up in U.S. hospitals or die on other border penetration attempts.

In an informal survey of 17 illegal immigrants headed for Guadalajara, 10 said they'd try again. Seven said they won't.

Border Patrol spokesman Charles Griffin would not say if those kinds of numbers reflect on the success of the program.

"What they're going to tell you is not necessarily what they're going to do," he said.

Juan Calderón, the Mexican consul in Tucson, called the program a humanitarian effort.

"I think it's a positive program," he said. "One hundred percent of the people here are going back home voluntarily."

The number of deaths since Oct. 1 in Arizona, excluding Yuma County, was 90 as of Aug. 5, down from 111 this time in 2003, Griffin said.

Four people died crossing the border in the Tucson sector from when the program began July 12 until Aug. 8, compared with 25 or 26 in the same period in 2003, Calderón said.

The program is evaluated once a week and can be canceled at any time but is scheduled to run through the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30.

"I think the feeling is that it's successful to this point, so it's continuing," Griffin said.

Franco tried to cross twice. The 34-year-old father of three from Tonalá, near Guadalajara, said he's had enough.

But going home, even on a free ticket, is bittersweet for Franco. Though he is home with his family, in Mexico he can't make as much money as he might have in the United States.

Aboard Flight 2791

The 77 people are brought to Tucson International Airport in buses and guided onto an air-conditioned plane.

Everyone on the flight volunteered. Some were deemed "at risk" by agents and had to be persuaded.

"At-risk" people include those who are sick, elderly, out of shape for a desert trek, injured or traveling with young children, according to Border Patrol criteria. They've already crossed the border once, and another trip could kill them.

The Mexican consul makes sure everyone aboard the flights is willing.

Franco said his "coyote," or human smuggler, told him to go ahead of the group to check things out on the first trip near Douglas. The coyote left, Franco said, because the Border Patrol was near. Franco got caught.

The second trip was worse.

After trying two treks in two days, sick of the desert, tired of coyote tactics and running out of money, Franco accepted the free flight home.

Trying to cross illegally already cost Franco $400. He said he paid $200 each attempt and would have owed another $1,400 had he made it across to get to a construction job in Phoenix.

The in-flight movie was "Shrek 2," in Spanish and English. The illegal immigrants were served sodas, juice or water and ham-and-cheese sandwiches. Franco felt a bit sick and cramped in the plane.

Franco's first plane trip didn't impress him, he said.

Back in Mexico

Most of the immigrants that particular day were from the area surrounding Mexico City, so the flight went there, not Franco's native Guadalajara.

The 2 1/2-hour flight lands at about 8:30 p.m., and Franco gets off the chartered Compania Mexico de Aviación plane.

He heads through a quick Mexican customs check with nothing but the clothes on his back. He brought no bag, he said, because he knew the smuggler would make him leave it in the desert.

Franco is handed another sandwich, a snack and piece of fruit in a foam container along with a juice and water as he gets on the bus.

Pearla Carrillo, 19, and her infant son, Sergio, also are on the bus heading west from Mexico City. They won't try to cross again.

One man who claimed he'd try to cross again, 29-year-old Diego Alvarez from Chiapas, said he crossed four times in one week and was robbed of everything on his final trip. He points to his belt and his pants where bandits in the desert sliced open his clothes to look for secret money stashes.

Alvarez wants an agricultural job in Florida. He said he's going to Guadalajara and not Chiapas to save money because there's no work in his home state.

"If I can't make enough money to try again, I won't," said Alvarez, a 29-year-old father of three.

The bus slowly empties as people are dropped off in the dark along the highway. The bus fare is also courtesy of the United States.

At about 6 the following morning, the bus pulls into a station. Franco dozed on and off during the night and helped the young mother, Carrillo.

Her bus isn't leaving for another 10 hours, so he invites her home. He has young children her infant can play with. She can rest and eat, Franco said.

Carrillo is a bit skeptical. She said she trusts no one after two border-crossing failures from Naco, but she accepts.

Carrillo said she tried to make it to Denver to reunite with her husband.

"He hasn't seen his son; that's why we wanted to go," she said.

Franco said he decided to cross the border illegally after being scammed out of $500 in what he thought was a legitimate way to get U.S. immigration papers. His wife didn't want him to go. His children didn't want him to go. He didn't really want to go.

But his dream is to own a horse stable and raise animals. He just can't earn enough in construction in Mexico to fulfill that dream.

Now he's back home, about a week after he left. His wife is surprised when he knocks at the door at 6:30 a.m.

"I was so worried," his wife, Lupe, said. His oldest daughter's eyes almost jump out of her head when she and sees her father is home.

Franco said he knows he could have made more money at the construction job in Phoenix. But now he's home, where he belongs. He prefers the Mexican lifestyle and didn't plan to bring his family to the United States.

Franco takes his 6-year-old son, Cesar, to cowboy practice, where he learns to rope animals and ride horses. His 9-year-old daughter, Maria Elena, hangs all over her father. His 2-year-old daughter, Fatima, begs him to put her in a tree.

By the numbers

As of Aug. 7:
 

4,594 Mexicans flown home

3,614 men

980 women

630 juveniles

2,608 went to Mexico City

1,986 to Guadalajara

$14 million spent

Two $50,000 flights daily

Tucson sector:

90 deaths by Aug. 5 vs. 111 by same date last year; 34 heat-related this year vs. 66 last year

423,790 apprehensions from Oct. 1 through Aug. 5; 287,427 apprehensions for the same period last year

Mexican border:

977,926 apprehensions from Oct. 1 through Aug. 5; 232 deaths as of Aug. 7

Source: Department of Homeland Security