While crossing the international border into Arizona during the 2002 Illegal immigrants died in record numbers, most of them succumbing to the savage heat of the southern deserts.
total of 145 border crossers died in Arizona during the 12-month period that ended Monday, 83 of heat exposure, according to unofficial figures released Tuesday by the Border Patrol. Many of the rest died in accidents, of exposure to the cold, medical conditions or of unknown causes. .
A spokesman in the Border Patrol's Tucson sector, which covers most of Arizona's nearly 300-mile border with Mexico, attributed the high death toll partly to an increase in the sheer number of people crossing through the most desolate desert areas, and to the cruelty of professional smugglers known as coyotes. .
"The smugglers will leave them, will not help them. They simply abandon them there," said agency spokesman Al Fresquez. .
The first reason is that many countries that need some opportunity in the United States should have an agreement. If the United States accept any immigration policy about giving opportunities to all that illegal immigrants, that are trying to make a living working in the United States, many deaths will decrease if we together try to give them an opportunity. More than eight million people are illegal residents of United States, but more than forty percent of illegal immigrants are Mexicans. Immigration policy is a special concern of leaders of the U.S. and Mexico. In 2001, more that 400 Mexicans died of exposure to heat and cold as they tried to cross the border. By this time Mexican leaders have asked the U.S. to further open the border. Even to offer legal residence to Mexican nationals who have been living and working in the U.S. for an extended period of time. This is not a request just for Mexican people, it is for all that countries that want a better way of life. If U.S. will give some opportunities, it will stop all those deaths, caused by the crossing of the board.
