Report Indicates "Border Crossings" have dropped by 95% since 2005

Border Crossings have dropped significantly since 2005 and by over 95% in Yuma. Over this same period, the Border Patrol has more than Doubled! So tell me, why are all of the Tea Party extremists agitating for more Border Enforcement dollars?
Yuma, AZ Reports --A report released by the Center for American Progress claims that border apprehensions of illegal aliens along the U.S.-Mexico border have dropped by more than 70% in the last 10 years. Center for American Progress Director of Immigration Policy, Marshall Fitz says, "well we know for sure is that far fewer people are attempting to enter the united states without authorization. And for those who do attempt to cross, our border patrol is preventing or catching them at a far greater rate than ever before."
Fitz says more Border Patrol Agents and improved technology have caused the drop in illegal crossings. According to the report there are more than 21,000 Border Patrol Agents nationwide. More than double the number of agents there were back in 2004. Arizona alone has over 5,000 of those agents.
The report also said that as more fences and cameras have been put up, they've helped agents catch more crosser's. Showing a distinct difference in the infrastructure between the Yuma sector border in 2006 and 2008.
The report says the number of illegal immigrant apprehensions has dropped across the board from San Diego to Texas.
Here in Yuma, apprehensions were at their highest in 2005 with more than 135,000 arrests.
That number dropped to just over 7,000 in 2010.

Former Immigration Commissioner Doris Meissner and current Senior Fellow at the Migration Policy Institute says the poor economy has also played a role in the drop, "what we're looking at now, with the change in the economy in the U.S. and the dramatically reduced flow because jobs are not available in the U.S. has brought us to a point where there is no net growth whatsoever to the illegal population in the united states."

However, not everyone agrees with the report.
Arizona Representative Jeff Flake is quoted saying, "anyone who thinks our border is safer now more than ever has obviously never been to the border or spoken with those who live and work along it."

Border Deaths: While Rate of Illegal Immigration is at a 20 year Low, the Death Rate of Border Crossers in Arizona is at a 5 year High!

Illegal immigration into the United States has slowed considerably in the last several years, a study released Wednesday concludes. The decline marks the first significant turnaround in two decades, researchers with the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center say. As a result, the U.S. illegal immigrant population may have fallen as much as 8 percent from 2007 to 2009.

"We've seen a reversal in what had been the long-term growth in the illegal immigrant population," researcher Jeffrey S. Passel said Wednesday. An estimated 11.1 million illegal immigrants live in the United States. Possibly because of tighter enforcement measures and economic circumstances driving some immigrants back home, the population is down from its estimated 2007 peak of 12 million. "Particularly along the southern border, enforcement has ramped up considerably," Passel said. "It's harder and more dangerous for immigrants to cross into the country."

While studies prove the numbers are at a 20 year low, the death rate along the Arizona border is at a 5 year high! Deaths of illegal immigrants in Arizona have soared this summer toward their highest levels since 2005 - a fact that has surprised many who thought that the furor over the state's new immigration law and the 100-plus degree heat would draw them elsewhere along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.

But at the Pima County morgue in Tucson, Ariz., the body bags are stacked on stainless-steel shelves from floor to ceiling. (Imagine the carnage!) A refrigerated truck has been brought in to handle the overflow at the multimillion dollar facility.

In July, 59 people died - 40 in the first two weeks when nighttime temperatures were the hottest in recorded history, hovering around the low 90s. The single-month death count is second only to July 2005, when 68 bodies were found.

Of this July's deaths, 44 were on the Tohono O'Odham Nation, a reservation the size of Connecticut that shares 75 miles of Arizona's border with Mexico, in Pima County - the home of the murder of Brisenia Flores, the location of the Neo-Nazi's and Minutemen's border stalkings. The Tohono tribe is opposed to humanitarian aid on its lands, believing it invites violence. Eighteen more people died in the first 23 days of August. Even with the prospect of a torturous death, and the bitter wrath they face in Arizona - Minutemen, Neo-Nazis and Arpaio, the immigrants, say the state's vast, sparsely populated terrain is still the best place for border jumpers. One can only imagine the horror these innocents face in their homeland that causes them to take such risks.

Reference:
Migrants say Arizona worth risk of crossing
Study: Illegal immigration has slowed considerably