- MEXICO CITY (AP)-The
U.S. is working on an agreement with Mexico to deport illegal migrants
to their hometowns instead of dropping them just over the border, an effort
to prevent deaths and stop smugglers. The measure would apply only to migrants
caught while crossing.
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- Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said at a news
conference in Mexico City on Friday that the United States hopes to start
deporting migrants to their original communities by the summer, when crossings
are at their highest.
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- The new program mirrors a similar repatriation operation
in place in the 1990s that was discontinued.
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- Currently, migrants captured in the United States are
flown or bused to the border and sent across to Mexico. Mexican border
towns say they are being flooded with people who have no money or place
to stay, and U.S. officials say it just encourages migrants to cross again.
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- During his two-day visit to Mexico, Ridge also signed
an agreement with Mexican Interior Secretary Santiago Creel to increase
security along the border, including measures to improve surveillance,
crack down on migrant smugglers and intensify programs to warn migrants
of the dangers of illegal crossings. A joint U.S.-Mexico commission is
to work out the details.
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- In a morning meeting with reporters, Homeland Security
Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson had indicated Mexico fully supported the
new deportation program. Ridge said later: "We will redouble our efforts
to reach an agreement on repatriation by summer."
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- However, arriving at a final agreement may be difficult
given Mexico's concerns about sovereignty and migrant complaints about
being sent all the way home.
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- Broad differences between the two sides were evident
Friday. Creel insisted that migrants not be forced to return home, saying:
"This has to be voluntary."
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- Hutchinson had said that officials were considering making
the program mandatory for migrants, although incentives could also be developed
to persuade them to return home voluntarily.
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- "Whether it would be voluntary or involuntary remains
a very sensitive topic, and one that we'll continue to talk about,"
he said.
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- More than 150 people died in 2003 while illegally crossing
the U.S.-Mexico border through the harsh southern Arizona desert, the U.S.
Customs and Border Patrol said.
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