Number of illegal immigrants from Mexico increasing

SASABE, Mexico -- After a four-year decline, illegal immigration from Mexico is spiking as several thousand migrants a day rush across the border in hopes of getting work visas under a program President Bush proposed. Many also are trying to beat tighter security to come in June.\nThe U.S. border patrol told The Associated Press that detentions -- which it uses to judge illegal migration rates -- jumped 25 percent to 535,000 in the six months ending March 31 compared to a year ago.\nNear Sasabe, a town bordering the Arizona desert that's the busiest illegal border crossing area, an average of 2,000 people arrive daily.\nOn a recent day, at a break in a barbed-wire fence outside Sasabe, about 300 migrants scrambled out of 10 trucks and four vans within 30 minutes with their smugglers, who led crowds along a worn trail. As the sun set, they disappeared into rolling hills that hide the treacherous desert.\nRaudel Sanchez, a 22-year-old farm worker, said he wanted to get back to his job at a Minnesota ranch.\nSanchez crossed into the United States through Sasabe three years ago but said the journey is getting more difficult. He walked three days in the desert and was out of water when he was caught in Arizona and deported.\nUndeterred, he said he planned to take a bus to Altar, a northern city about 70 miles from the border where migrants hire smugglers. From there, he planned to head back to Sasabe and cross again.\n"It's already very hard to cross, but it's going to be even harder," he said in Nogales, Ariz. "I need to try again, at least one more time, and if I fail, I'll go back home."\nMany migrants are betting on the approval of Bush's migration proposal, which faces an uphill battle in Congress. About 75 percent of those arrested are Mexican, while the rest are from Central America and other places, U.S. customs officials said.\nIn January, Bush proposed a guest-worker plan that would give legal status to undocumented migrants already working in the United States and to those outside the country who can prove they have been offered a job.\nBecause it's hard to get a job offer while in Mexico, many are heading north now, hoping to get settled before a program is in place.\nMexicans living in the United States have criticized Bush's proposal. Many say they wouldn't apply, fearing it could be a trap to deport them.\nBut in Mexico, the program has given many migrants the hope they might be able to seek something better north of the border, and that is enough to convince some to cross now rather than later.\n"I want to try and make it to the United States to find out more about the permits because I've heard that with a job it will be easier to get" a visa, said Jaime Ulloa, speaking in Nogales, after being deported for a third time. He is trying to get to Florida, where a U.S. farmer has promised him a job picking vegetables.\nMark Krikorian, executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that favors stricter immigration policies, said the rise in illegal migration also shot up in 1986 when an amnesty was announced.\n"Illegal aliens will respond to the messages the government sends," Krikorian said. "When we send the message that we are thinking about amnesty, they decide it may be worth it to try to cross."\nIllegal migration had been declining along the U.S.-Mexico border since 2000. U.S. border patrol figures show detentions dropped from 1.6 million in 2000 to 905,000 in the fiscal year that ended last Sept. 30.\nThere is no exact data on the number of people crossing illegally. But in an indication of increased traffic, 535,000 illegal migrants were arrested along the U.S.-Mexico border from Oct. 1 to March 31, said Gloria Chavez of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bureau.\nIn the same period, the border patrol's Tucson sector detained 70,000 more people, an increase of 49 percent.