Border crossings shift back to California routes

Yuma has seen apprehensions drop from 118,000 in 2006 to only 8,000 in 2008. Tucson apprehensions have fallen 20 percent in the same period.

Whatever the balance among factors, their combined effect is clear: San Diego Sector agents apprehended 162,000 illegal immigrants in the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30, up from 127,000 in 2005. Border-wide, the 723,000 apprehensions this year were down sharply from 1.2 million in 2005.

Statistics from Mexico's National Migration Institute show Tijuana has received more than 40 percent of all Mexicans deported from the U.S. this year, or 50,000 more displaced migrants on its streets than last year. Indeed, the San Diego Sector traffic remains far below its peak of more than 500,000 apprehensions in 1993, the year before the U.S. launched Operation Gatekeeper, which erected fences to stop crowds from rushing across the open border nearly every night.

The current surge "is a function of the most flagrant problems having been addressed in San Diego first," said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies which advocates stricter immigration control. "Once the migration flow moved to Arizona, then enforcement efforts moved to Arizona, and some aliens and smugglers thought they would try their luck back in San Diego."

Crossings coordinated by cell phones
The weekend cyclist ruse is only one method. Throughout Tijuana, spotters watch the Border Patrol's movements day and night, coordinating runs northward by walkie-talkie cell phones.

Smugglers have even tried to take advantage of a $57 million project to extend double fencing between San Diego and Tijuana: Agents recently found 49 migrants packed inside the tank of a water truck stolen right off a Border Patrol construction site.

Others try to cross by water. San Diego immigration authorities have stopped 33 boats smuggling migrants or drugs north to area beaches in the 12 months that ended Sept. 30, up from 10 in 2007.

But most Tijuana-area crossers still head into the deserts east of town. Near the sleepy border city of Tecate, crossing points are marked by piles of shredded blankets migrants cut into improvised moccasins to cover their tracks.

Santiago Rivera, 27, has been deported to Tijuana twice since May after serving a 25-month sentence for dealing heroin. He's lived most of his life in Los Angeles and said he no longer knows any relatives in his home state of Michoacan.

His pockets empty, he recently headed to Tecate to try crossing again.

"My sister lives in Beverly Hills. She goes to UCLA," Rivera said and proceeded to list the other US cities where relatives are living. "My mother is a cosmetologist and a nurse. She lives in Culver City. My girlfriend lives in Granada Hills, and she's manager of a restaurant. She's born over there. My daughter's born over there.

"What do I have here?" he continued. "Look at me. You think this is life?"

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