14 Illegal Immigrants Die at Ariz. Border
W E L L T O N, Ariz., May 24, 2001 -- Fourteen illegal immigrants have died andat least three others were missing today, five days aftersmugglers abandoned them in the blistering heat of the Arizonadesert, the Border Patrol said.
Rescuers used helicopters and four-wheel-drive vehicles earlytoday to search for the missing Mexican immigrants. They earlierfound 11 survivors, who were hospitalized for heat exhaustion andsevere dehydration. Some were unconscious when found.
Searchers had found 11 bodies Wednesday, and one immigrant dieden route to a hospital. Near midnight, searchers found anadditional body, then found one more around 5 a.m., Border Patrolspokesman Maurice Moore said in Yuma.
The assistant chief for the Yuma sector said footprintsindicated that three others remained missing. Originally agents hadthought four were missing, rather than five.
‘The Middle of Nowhere’
"We intend to work this until we've made sure that there's noone left out there," Moore said. "It's in the middle of nowherethere."
Survivors said the group, some of them said to be from theMexican state of Veracruz, was smuggled into the United States onSaturday east of Yuma in the rugged terrain of the Cabeza PrietaNational Wildlife Refuge. The smugglers left them there, promisingto return with water and instructing them to walk for "a couple ofhours" to a highway.
But they never came back. The highway was more than 50 milesfrom where they were abandoned.
The Border Patrol began its search Wednesday after fivesunburned survivors found agents and sought help. As temperaturesclimbed as high as 115 degrees, searchers rescued six moreimmigrants and discovered the bodies of 11 people. A 12th persondied on the way to the hospital.
Search teams were operating out of Wellton, 130 miles southwestof Phoenix. The bodies were discovered about 25 miles from theMexican border.
Worst Border Tragedy in 20 Years
The 14 immigrants who succumbed to exposure made up the largestgroup of border crossers to die in Arizona in more than 20 years.In July 1980, 13 Salvadorans died.
"This is evidence of the callousness and the ruthlessness ofthese smugglers who have now taken human lives to turn them into acommodity," Border Patrol spokesman Rene Noriega said in Tucson.Noriega said.
Southern Arizona became a popular crossing point for illegalimmigrants in the 1990s, after crackdowns in California and Texaspushed more people to try to enter the country through remote anddangerous areas.
The Border Patrol said 106 people died while crossing southernArizona's deserts during the 12-month period that ended on Sept.30, 2000. Many of them died from exposure.
"What's causing it is the deadly strategy of the Border Patrolthat has forced people into the most hazardous areas of thedesert," said the Rev. John Fife, a Tucson pastor who supports aprogram that built a watering station for immigrants in Arizona.
In August 1997, eight Mexican illegal immigrants drowned afterbeing swept away by a 15-foot high wall of water in a normally drywash a few yards inside Arizona. In June 1996, five illegalimmigrants from Mexico died of exposure in the desert 30 milessouth of Casa Grande.
"People are very, very ill-prepared to understand the distancesand the dangers and threats to their lives," said the Rev. RobinHoover, a Tucson pastor who also sets up water stations for bordercrossers. "For many of the people who cross, they have no ideawhat they are encountering."