Arthur H. Rotstein, The Associated Press
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -- As temperatures rise and drought persists, Border Patrol agents hope a shift in strategies will avert the large number of illegal immigrant deaths that have plagued Arizona’s treacherous deserts in previous summers.
They hope to avoid a repeat of fiscal 2002, when 85 people died of heat exposure among a record 145 people who perished in the Arizona desert.
Expanded initiatives planned this year include two encampments in the western desert giving Border Patrol agents easier access to remote areas. More rescue beacon-type signal systems and more aerial patrols will be added also, some with agents on U.S. Customs aircraft.
Yuma will have six helicopters and two airplanes patrolling during the summer months; Tucson currently has two aircraft and 11 helicopters.
There are plans to build and share a processing center and temporary holding facility with police on the Tohono O’odham Reservation near San Miguel.
Finally, there will be new public service announcements in Spanish for play south of the border warning would-be crossers of the desert’s life-threatening dangers.
``We’ve taken some extraordinary steps over the last couple of years,’' said Mike Nicley, chief of the Border Patrol’s Yuma sector, which includes eastern California.
Tightened enforcement at Douglas, Naco and Nogales in recent years increasingly has funneled smugglers toward Arizona’s more remote western deserts.
Critics of Border Patrol and U.S. immigration policy contend the crackdowns have contributed to desert deaths.
There is little argument that western Arizona’s higher temperatures, more rugged terrain, lack of shade and water and longer traveling distances have been contributing factors.
During fiscal 2002, which ended Sept. 30, the Tucson sector _ which covers all but about the 50 westernmost miles of the state’s border with Mexico _ registered 134 deaths from all causes, up from 78 the year before. The Yuma sector had 11 deaths, down from 24 in fiscal 2001.
Nicley credited heightened patrol and rescue efforts and the placement of eight rescue beacons in the desert areas stretching some 60 to 70 miles east from Yuma with trimming the death toll.
Because of its successes, Yuma will add another six to eight solar-powered rescue beacons, which send a radio distress signal when a button is pushed. And Tucson will adopt a similar approach.
One such beacon was credited for the rescue of 20 illegal immigrants in June, Yuma sector spokesman Jerry Wofford said. In addition, three biologists working in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge used a nearby beacon in July to signal for help after their vehicle became stuck in sand.
``One life that’s saved off one of those things makes it worthwhile,’' Nicley said. ``It gives people a way to summon help.’'
David Aguilar, chief of the patrol’s Tucson sector, said 12 to 18 similar signaling devices could be in place by June.
``As always, our concern especially with the west desert is at the forefront because of what’s happened in the past,’' Aguilar said.
The seasonal campsite operation that the Yuma sector started in March 2002, Operation Desert Grip, was ``extraordinarily effective,’' Nicley said.
Agents were put into the remote area for more rapid response because it is so difficult to reach otherwise, he said. ``Smugglers know we cannot respond even if they hit sensors or we spot them by air,’' he said.
While immigrant- or drug-smugglers made 89 known drive-throughs in the area between October 2001 and March 2002, there were less than 10 from March through October 2002, when the camp was dismantled until last month, Wofford said.
Last year, agents camped in a portable trailer in a remote location near Camino del Diablo, or the Devil’s Highway _ an old wagon trail paralleling the border. It has been used for generations by people on foot and in vehicles traversing the international boundary.
The site is near where 14 stranded illegal immigrants died of dehydration or heat-related injuries in May 2001 on the Cabeza Prieta refuge as temperatures spiked to 115 degrees.
Agents camped at the site for about a week at a time.
This year, the site has been improved with two small collapsible buildings provided by military authorities. The structures have portable generators, air conditioning, cooking facilities and portable toilets that literally burn waste.
``The campsite leaves no footprint,’' Nicley said, and offers almost all the comforts of home, ``but it’s still very arduous living conditions.’'
Agents in the Tucson sector will operate from a campsite about 25 miles east, using two mobile trailers with generators.
Both units will have trained emergency medical technicians among the agents stationed at the campsites.
The aim of the patrols and other methods is simple, Nicley said. ``We don’t want to interdict; we don’t want to catch people, to process them, to take them back across that border ... We want to deter.’'