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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neeka who wrote (213228)	12/28/2001 7:13:39 PM
From: greenspirit	Respond to of 769670

Illegal immigration from Mexico falls in California EFE - 12/28/2001 thenewsmexico.com SANTA ANA, California - Increased anti-terrorism security measures and the high prices charged by immigrant smugglers this time of the year have led to a decrease in illegal immigration along the U.S.-Mexican border, authorities said. The San Diego office of the U.S. Border Patrol said arrests of illegal immigrants dropped 25 percent between November and December. Arrests and deportations have decreased 30 percent along the rest of the California-Mexico border, according to the Border Patrol office in El Centro. The decrease is due to the strict vigilance along the border implemented following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. A further explanation for such a decrease is the high prices immigrant smugglers - known as "coyotes" - charge during the holiday season. Sergio Perez, a Mexican construction worker in Santa Ana, California, said he could not visit his family in Guadalajara for Christmas. He noted, however, he plans to do so before the end of the year, despite the fact that a smuggler told him it would cost more than $2,000 to re-enter the United States illegally. Perez said the high prices were due to "increased security measures, because of terrorism. The border is now strongly guarded." He noted even legal U.S. residents have a difficult time re-entering the country from Mexico. Last year Perez paid $1,350 to cross the border and reach Santa Ana, where he met up with friends from Guadalajara. "Now I would have to pay $2,300 in January, but the trip is worth it. I have been sending my family money for a year and I hope they are now living in better conditions," he said. However, the obstacles on immigration placed by terrorism are on both sides of the border. Aldo Valenzuela, a Los Angeles resident who drove his cousin to Tijuana last year, said officials on the Mexican side of the border are also conducting searches, which was not the case until only several weeks ago. "It's not that they ask us for our papers upon crossing the border, it's just that you cannot purchase an airplane or bus ticket without a picture identification. They are measures like the ones here in the United States," Valenzuela said. For thousands of illegal immigrants who have traveled to Mexico in December the new measures mean a last-minute rush to their consulates. At the Mexican Consulate in Santa Ana there has been a significant increase in demand for official Mexican identification cards with pictures, which are offered by the country's Foreign Relations Secretariat and enable illegal immigrants to travel to their countries of origin and return to the United States. "We have gone from processing 45 to 50 documents each day to more than 200 each day in December," a consulate official said. According to the Mexican consul in San Francisco, Bernardo Mendez, between 10 million and 12 million Mexicans live in the United States, of whom 2.5 million regularly travel to Mexico for the Christmas holidays. "We are now all either direct or indirect victims of the terrorism in the United States," Valenzuela said.