New Wall Not Expected to Stop Migrants

Raul Gomez, 35, and Lourdes Rolan, 36, kiss at a park overlooking the border wall while taking a break from work on Tuesday, May 16, 2006 in Tijuana, Mexico. This section of the border wall separating Tijuana and San Diego, California, runs into the Pacific Ocean. Gomez, who is originally from the Mexican state of Guerrero, has lived in Tijuana for 12 years, but previously had worked in agricultural fields up and down the west coast of the United States. As the U.S. prepares to build a high-tech barrier with 700 miles (1,125 kilometers) of extra fencing, motion detectors and remote controlled devices, smugglers are already figuring out how to beat the new security. (AP Photo/David Maung) (David Maung - AP)

"These organizations will have to innovate, become more sophisticated, and for the migrant that will mean an even higher cost," Ramos said. "It wouldn't surprise me if smugglers began crossing migrants through underground tunnels or began using boats."

In Altar, a Mexican farming town of 7,000 and a gathering point for those heading to Arizona, hundreds of men carrying backpacks and jugs of water mill around the town's plaza. They are waiting for their smugglers to drive them to the final staging area, Sasabe, which borders on the sparsely populated Tohono O'odham Indian reservation on the U.S. side.

Hiking for days through snake-infested desert under a broiling sun, some don't survive. Still, the paths through the desert near Sasabe are less hostile than the terrain near Yuma, which is expected to become the next big crossing area.

Other migrants are locked in the back of tractor-trailers, stuffed in hollowed-out dashboards or hidden in car engines, risking suffocation and heat exhaustion.

From Oct. 1, 2005, to Sept. 15 of this year, 426 people died while illegally crossing the border, and the Colegio de la Frontera Norte says the death toll since 1994 is about 3,700.

"More walls will make it more difficult for migrants to cross, but they will keep trying, even if they risk dying," said Luis Kendzierski, a priest who directs a Tijuana migrant shelter.

Often, migrants too tired or poor to attempt another crossing end up staying just south of the border. Ramos said Tijuana's population has more than doubled to about 1.3 million since the U.S. crackdown began.

"This has created all sorts of problems for Tijuana, and many other border cities where this happens, because they lack the necessary public services," he said.

Jesus Villalobos, 31, deported from Los Angeles a week ago, plans to hire a smuggler before crossing again _ as soon as possible, to beat the new security measures.

"I need to get back because my daughter is there, my life is there," Villalobos said while resting at a migrant shelter in Tijuana.

"It's already dangerous to cross, and with another wall it will only get more dangerous and expensive."

___

Associated Press reporter Luis Perez contributed to this story from Tijuana.

___

On the Net:

U.S. Border Patrol: http://www.cbp.gov/