Now departing for Mexico: one-way flights for illegals

Someone must have told them it was cold in the desert at night, as they are all wearing sweatshirts. They disembark the charter flight and shuffle into a hangar behind Mexico City's International Airport. Looking down, most miss the sign strung up cheerfully across the wall that reads, "Bienvenidos" - welcome.

They have not been gone long, really. A week, maybe 10 days. They left their homes in Puebla or Oaxaca, Veracruz or Chiapas, put a bar of soap and an extra pair of jeans in a knapsack, hugged their families farewell, and headed north across the US-Mexico border into Arizona.

Now, they are back, their journey cut short by the US Border Patrol, and their return home speeded by a US taxpayer-funded program that flies illegal immigrants caught at the border back home. "Their smugglers are saying, 'Try crossing again and again,'" says US Border Patrol spokesman Salvador Zamora, "and we are saying, 'Let us get you out of here.... The desert is filled with death."

Last year, 330 migrants died crossing the 261-mile Arizona border, 124 of them in the Sonoran Desert, according to the Mexican consulate in Tucson, Ariz. They lost their lives to snakes and scorpions, to bandits and - in the summer months, when temperatures soar into the triple digits - to heatstroke and dehydration. Arizona regularly sees more migrants trying to cross its frontier - and more deaths - than any other border state.

In the past, immigrants who were caught trying to enter Arizona (700,000 last year, according to US Border Patrol statistics) were bused back and released. From there, many simply started the journey all over again.

To try to lower the number of deaths during the summer months and discourage quick turnarounds, the US and Mexican governments last year instituted a voluntary repatriation program, where migrants are offered a flight back to the interior of Mexico and spared any immigration proceedings. Those who choose to participate are put on charters in Tucson, flown 2-1/2 hours to Mexico City, and given bus tickets to their home towns and villages. There are two flights a day.

Last summer 14,071 people took the flights, at a cost of $1,100 per passenger, or $15.5 million overall, paid for by the US government. The program started up again last month and is expected to continue until Sept. 30 at a cost of $14.2 million. The Mexican government is further contributing $143,920 toward travel expenses within Mexico.

Officials on both sides of the border say the program is a small but sure success. According to US Border Patrol statistics, only 18 percent of the program's participants last year were arrested attempting to re-enter the US - almost half the sector's recidivism rate of 32 percent. Meanwhile, during the summer of 2004, there was one death for every 3,488 people detained, according to the Mexican Foreign Ministry; in that same period in 2003, there was one death for every 2,498 detentions.

European nations, including Britain, France, and Germany, have announced plans for a similar program to fly illegal immigrants back to their home countries.

Currently, an average of only 94 Mexicans are volunteering to return on each flight, says Mr. Zamora, well below the 150 that the Border Patrol expected. A US-Mexican working group of government officials and immigration experts will meet next week to discuss ways of increasing participation.

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