An Increasingly Deadly Trail

COVERED WELLS, Ariz. -- It was early on a May morning, still dark, when Border Patrol agent Dan McClafferty first smelled death, its rich odor piercing the desert bouquet of sage, salt cedar and creosote. Following the beam of his flashlight, McClafferty looked under the thorny branches of a paloverde tree and found what he was looking for.

The body of the 3-year-old boy lay still, covered with a jacket and his arms crossed over his chest. His mother, found wandering along a desert highway hours earlier, had carried him there as she had tried to cross into the United States illegally.

The sad discovery was not unique. Since 1993, when the Clinton administration began a crackdown on border crossings in San Diego and El Paso, more than 3,500 people have died trying to cross into the United States through desert. And, as officials work to put more patrols and fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, immigrant advocates fear there will be more deaths among the tens of thousands who attempt the trip.

Most of the deaths so far -- 959 since Oct. 1, 2001, according to local government statistics and the Mexican government -- have been in Arizona, where the landscape comprises mountains, ranches, Indian reservations, military proving grounds and endless miles of cactus-filled desert. The boy, who was found on May 16 and whose name could not be ascertained from U.S. or Mexican officials, was one of the latest additions to the list.

Border Patrol statistics show that while the death toll mounts annually, the number of those apprehended while crossing the border has not changed significantly since 1993. But because federal agencies have tightened the border in urban areas, smugglers who move the men, women and children seeking to enter the United States illegally have funneled them onto increasingly perilous trails where temperatures are high, water is scarce and danger is abundant.

"All the evidence is that increased enforcement on the border has achieved no benefit at all except in additional employment of Border Patrol agents," said John Fife, a Tucson pastor and founder of No More Deaths, a coalition of charities devoted to stopping deaths during desert border crossings. "What has changed is the devastating elements of this policy. You have a number of deaths that surpasses the number of American deaths in Iraq. And yet still we are determined to persist and redouble our efforts."

The other view is that a tipping point could be reached if the flow of agents and materiel to the border continues to increase. Since 1993, the Border Patrol has tripled in size and President Bush has pledged to add 6,000 more agents. He also has ordered the National Guard, which began deploying to the border Monday, to help build new fencing and other protections. "America has the best technology in the world, and we will ensure that the Border Patrol has the technology they need to do their job and secure our border," Bush said May 15 in a nationally televised speech.

Even as the president was speaking, McClafferty was searching the Arizona desert.

A Toxic Mix

The 3-year-old's mother's name was Edith Rodreguez. She and her son crossed into the United States from Sasabe, Mexico, on May 11, said a spokesman for the Mexican consulate in Tucson. A native of the Mexican state of Veracruz, a major source for illegal immigration, the 25-year-old woman was traveling in a group of eight to 10 people, herded north by a smuggler, called a coyote.

To keep the group moving fast, the coyote handed out a Mexican over-the-counter drug called Sedalmerk, consulate spokesman Alejandro Ramos Cardoso said after Mexican officials interviewed Rodreguez. Sedalmerk is a combination of caffeine, Tylenol and the herbal supplement ephedra -- an amphetamine precursor that is banned in the United States.

Sedalmerk may be safe to use as a pick-me-up in a normal environment but it is a toxic mix when combined with a trek through the desert because it accelerates dehydration, McClafferty said. Two days into the journey, the boy's energy was flagging and he was dehydrated. On May 13, Ramos Cardoso said, the coyote and the rest of the crossers abandoned Rodreguez and her son, leaving them to walk in the desert by themselves.

Rodreguez began carrying the child, moving north through a sliver of earth hemmed in by two mountain ranges on land belonging to the Tohono O'odham Indian reservation. Sometime that day, the boy lost consciousness, Ramos Cardoso said. But Rodreguez kept on walking, clutching him.