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Risk of Death Higher Than Ever for Migrants |
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Sunday, 27 December 2009 15:20 |
This past fiscal year (October 1, 2008–September 30, 2009) was the most lethal on record for border crossers in the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, according to an article in the Arizona Daily Star.
If lethality is defined as risk of death, then it is given by the ratio of total deaths to total number of crossers in a given time period. Neither of these totals is known. However, making the standard assumptions that total remains recovered and total apprehensions are reliable surrogates for total deaths and total crossers, it is estimated that lethality has increased almost 30-fold in 11 years, more than doubled in 5 years, and jumped 55% in a single year.
The article also notes that this trend “coincides with the unprecedented buildup of agents, fences, roads and technology along the U.S.–Mexico border.” The 1.2% of agents assigned to search and rescue (40 out of 3,300) have not changed this trend.
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