ATLANTA – The acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the federal government is readying a travel advisory instructing Americans to avoid nonessential travel to Mexico.

Dr. Richard Besser made that disclosure during a news conference in Atlanta, saying the advisory was being released “out of an abundance of caution.”

Besser also reported there have been 40 confirmed cases of swine flu in the United States, including 20 in New York City. He said individuals can help to keep the disease from spreading by taking everyday precautions such as frequent handwashing, covering up coughs and sneezes and staying away from work or school if not feeling well.

WASHINGTON — Wading into the politically charged immigration debate, a group of colleges and universities is urging Congress to give illegal immigrants tuition aid and a path to citizenship in light of efforts in several states to block them.

The College Board, made up of 5,000 schools and best known for its SAT college admission tests, released a report Tuesday that cites a need for federal legislation that would open up in-state college tuition, financial aid and legal status to many illegal immigrants in the U.S.

Speaking publicly on the issue for the first time, the board is making its push after states in recent years have moved to bar illegal immigrants from paying in-state tuition and, in some cases, enrolling in their public colleges. It also comes as opponents are warning that immigration reform now could reduce already-scarce jobs and college enrollment slots in the ailing economy.

“This is a new area for us, but it was an easy call,” said Thomas W. Rudin, a senior vice president for the College Board.

He noted the contradiction in which illegal immigrants who are legally entitled to a K-12 public education suddenly hit barriers when applying to college, even when many are “honor roll students, athletes, class presidents and valedictorians.”

“We absolutely believe it’s important for opening up economic opportunities,” Rudin said.

Under House and Senate bills known as the Dream Act, illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. as children — defined as age 15 and under — and have lived here for five years could apply to the Homeland Security Department for conditional legal status after graduating from high school.

Such legal status would make the immigrants eligible for in-state college tuition rates and some forms of federal financial aid. Then, if they attend college or participate in military service for at least two years, the immigrants would qualify for permanent legal residency and ultimately citizenship.

The legislation, which has been introduced in various forms since 2001, comes as President Barack Obama is preparing to address the contentious issue of immigration reform later this year. The Dream Act has previously passed the Senate but failed to become law as it was folded into proposals for more comprehensive reform.

“It’s a straightforward test of what America is about: Do we punish children for the actions of their parents?” said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J. “If, as we try to pursue comprehensive immigration reform, we can’t get this simple element done, I don’t know what we can get done.”

Opponents disagree.

“It’s a massive amnesty effort being laid for this fall,” said Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which seeks to restrict immigration. “Since many of these illegal aliens and their families are overwhelmingly on the lower end of the economic scale, they’re going to take the lion’s share of need-based financial aid.”

Among the College Board’s findings:

—About 360,000 illegal immigrants who have a high school degree could qualify for the tuition aid. Another 715,000 immigrants between the ages of 5 and 17 would also benefit if they are motivated to finish high school and pursue a college degree.

—Roughly 10 states that offer tuition aid to illegal immigrants generally saw increased college revenue by enrolling these additional students, rather than financial burdens caused by an influx of immigrants paying cheaper tuition.

—An estimated 5 percent to 10 percent of the 65,000 illegal immigrants who graduate from high school each year go to college. Their ability to receive a higher education and move into better-paying jobs would help the U.S. economy in the form of increased tax revenue and consumer spending.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that illegal immigrants are entitled to a K-12 public education, but federal law is silent as to their college rights. As a result, states have been divided over providing benefits, and in many cases leave it up to individual colleges to decide.

South Carolina bans illegal immigrants from enrolling at any of its public colleges, and Alabama blocks them from its two-year colleges. Missouri and Virginia are also considering laws that deny enrollment.

At least four states — Georgia, Oklahoma, Colorado, Arizona — prohibit illegal immigrants from paying in-state tuition rates.

The 10 states that offer in-state tuition to illegal immigrants are California, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Washington. New Jersey is now reviewing whether to offer in-state tuition, while California is considering whether to let immigrants compete for financial aid.

PHOENIX — Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer urged a U.S. Senate committee Monday to help seek funding for sending 250 additional National Guard troops to the Arizona-Mexico border to assist authorities trying to curb violence committed by immigrant and drug smugglers.

The Republican governor was seeking help from the committee even though she said the Department of Defense has effectively denied her request for more troops at Arizona’s 370-mile southern boundary, where 150 National Guard troops are now working as part of a long-standing border assistance program.

“We are not seeing the help we need,” Brewer said.

The Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held a field hearing in Phoenix, the nation’s busiest immigrant and marijuana smuggling hub, to gather information from state and local officials about the effects of trafficking violence on their communities.

State and local officials said the federal government hasn’t done enough to combat smuggling and related violence, leaving communities vulnerable to a litany of crimes committed by traffickers and a heavy bill from the social costs of a porous border.

The crimes cited by officials included immigrant and drug smugglers who kidnap their rivals for ransom in Phoenix, some human smugglers who sexually assault customers, traffickers who carry out home invasions in Tucson, and drug cartel associates who sneak guns from Arizona into Mexico.

“It all comes from our borders not being secured,” Brewer said.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was pleased with the Obama administration’s plans to dispatch nearly 500 more federal agents to the U.S.-Mexico border, but said that wasn’t enough.

The denial of Brewer’s request for more border troops was unacceptable, McCain said. “We must do more,” McCain said.

The troops already at the border are part of a long-standing program in which National Guard troops assist in anti-drug efforts and help federal agents inspect vehicles at ports of entry.

The Bush administration sent thousands of Guard troops to the border to perform support duties so that federal border authorities would be freed up to focus on border security. Bush’s buildup began in 2006 and ended last year.

Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever, whose jurisdiction includes 83 miles of border, said smugglers don’t have much regard for police officers, but they view the military differently.

“They do have a great deal of respect (for) or fear of the military,” Dever said.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said smugglers who bring drugs and immigrants into the United States from Mexico are a problem for both governments to confront.

Goddard said smugglers return to Mexico with cash that fuels their operations and guns that are bought from American weapons dealers and used in Mexico’s war against drug cartels.

The attorney general advocated a stronger crackdown on people who illegally buy guns on behalf of cartels and a closer examination of vehicles driving through American ports of entry into Mexico.

“The carnage in Mexico is being facilitated by a flood of arms coming from this country,” Goddard said.

Several officials suggested that the United States and Mexico ought to do a better job of monitoring border traffic to keep ill-gotten money and guns from heading to Mexico.

“I have a new focus on how we are going to monitor and checkpoint southbound traffic both to try to diminish the flow of weapons to the Mexican drug cartels and cash,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Independent from Connecticut who is the leader of committee.

DOUGLAS – Police said a 19-year-old Douglas man whose family reported that he was kidnapped over the weekend has been found slain in Agua Prieta, Son.

Douglas police said Alejandro “Alex” Abril was strangled and found in a vehicle with the bodies of a 15-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy. Both were Mexican citizens.

Abril’s family reported him missing on Saturday, saying he had been kidnapped from a popular Agua Prieta nightclub, police said.

A police statement released Wednesday said family members told officers that Abril may have had ties to a drug and human smuggling organization. Police said say they have sketchy details of the investigation now being conducted by Agua Prieta Municipal Police.

Says $60 million in cash seized since Oct. 1

FROM LEFT: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano; Rep. Harry Teague, D-N.M.; El Paso, Texas, Border Patrol Chief Victor Manjarrez; and El Paso Field Office director of field operations Ana Hinojosa discuss border security during a tour of the Columbus, N.M., port of entry Wednesday.

COLUMBUS, N.M. – Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano toured the Columbus port of entry on Wednesday as part of a daylong trip along the U.S. border with Mexico.

In a brief stop at the small port, the former Arizona governor said beefing up security and technology at ports along the southern border is key to stopping the flow of drugs north and weapons and drug profits south.

“They (customs agents) have seized $60 million in cash so far this year this fiscal year,” Napolitano told reporters earlier in El Paso, Texas. “That’s the money that goes south to fuel the drug cartels; that’s their gasoline.”

Napolitano has said routine checks of cars headed south is now a priority.

After announcing the appointment of former U.S. Attorney Alan Bersin as the new “border czar,” Napolitano flew by helicopter from El Paso to Columbus about 85 miles to the west, where she toured the small port of entry that connects the area with Palomas, Mexico.

As she toured the port more than a dozen federal agents manned a checkpoint along N.M. 11, where a single lane leads into Palomas.

Officials set up a similar checkpoint at the international bridge in El Paso where Napolitano announced Bersin’s appointment.

Traffic into Mexico was backed up several hundreds yards there during the secretary’s visit.

The secretary went to Nogales on Wednesday, before heading to Mexico later this week.

Missouri National Guard member Brian Coleman, 24, keeps watch on the border in this 2006 file photo.

NOGALES – On her first visit to Arizona as Homeland Security secretary, Janet Napolitano said Wednesday that requests to return the National Guard to duty along the U.S.-Mexico border are under review.

Arizona’s former governor said President Barack Obama wants to know what missions the guardsmen would perform before making a decision.

Napolitano was asked about restoring the National Guard’s border presence during a news conference announcing a $212 million renovation of the border inspection facility at Nogales and assistance for law enforcement agencies in their efforts to prevent a spillover of drug-cartel violence.

Govs. Rick Perry of Texas and Jan Brewer of Arizona have requested border troops. “The president … really has asked questions particularly of the governor of Texas, who was the first one to request it, saying, `Where would they go, what missions would they perform?”’ Napolitano said. “In other words, don’t just throw something like the National Guard at a place. They have a mission and a job to do.”

The Bush administration sent thousands of National Guard troops to the border to perform support duties in a mission called “Operation Jump Start” that began in 2006 and ended last year. It was intended to free up Border Patrol agents to focus on border security while new agents were hired. But since the troops pulled out, violence among Mexican cartels has exploded.

“When we did Jump Start here, it was to help us build the fence along this portion of the border. So that’s being looked at right now,” Napolitano said. “The National Guard issue, without being state-specific, is under consideration.”

Meanwhile, Arizona’s two Republican senators echoed the call for border troops Wednesday during a Phoenix-area luncheon sponsored by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Sen. John McCain said a National Guard presence on the border is urgently needed. “I don’t envision it for an extended period of time, but right now, we need the Guard on the border because of this violence,” he said.

Sen. Jon Kyl added that the troops proved effective in assisting the Border Patrol and deterring immigrant- and drug-smuggling operations.

Mexico’s government is battling the drug cartels, which are also fighting each other for the most lucrative smuggling routes into the United States. More than 10,650 people have been killed in drug violence in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon sent out 45,000 troops in 2006 to directly confront the traffickers.

Mesa Police Chief George Gascon says the use of officers to enforce immigration laws is a waste of resources.

At a news conference Wednesday to discuss the arrests of 173 felons, Gascon says the city’s police department has kept its focus on local crime instead of illegal immigrants and Mesa’s violent crime has seen a steady decline since 2006.

But Gascon says that trend might not be able to continue if police officers are diverted to immigration duties.

For the first three months of 2009, violent and property crimes in Mesa decreased 13 percent compared with the same three-month period last year, according to police figures.

There also have been no homicides so far this year — the fewest number at this point into the year since 1988.

In another signal of increased attention to rising Mexican drug violence, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will return to the Southwestern border Wednesday to take a closer look at operations in El Paso; Columbus, N.M.; and Nogales.

Napolitano, the former Arizona governor, was in Los Angeles Monday to discuss security at ports of entry.

Napolitano announced a new series of border-security measures to guard against drug violence on March 24. She most recently visited the Southwestern border April 1 to 3, stopping in San Diego and Laredo, Texas, in conjunction with a trip to Mexico.

President Obama will visit Mexico later this week. From there he’ll head to Trinidad and Tobago for the Summit of the Americas.

WASHINGTON – Growing numbers of children of illegal immigrants are being born in this country, and they are nearly twice as likely to live in poverty than those with American-born parents, a report says.

The study released Tuesday by the Pew Hispanic Center highlights a growing dilemma in the immigration debate: Illegal immigrants’ children born in the United States are American citizens, yet they struggle in poverty and uncertainty along with parents who fear deportation, toil largely in low-wage jobs and face layoffs in an ailing economy.

The analysis by Pew, a nonpartisan research organization, estimated that 11.9 million illegal immigrants lived in the U.S. Of those, 8.3 million were in the labor force as of March 2008, making up 5.4 percent of the U.S. work force, primarily in lower-paying farming, construction or janitorial work.

Roughly three out of four of their children — or 4 million — were born in the U.S. In 2003, 2.7 million children of illegal immigrants, or 63 percent, were born in this country.

Overall, illegal immigrants’ children account for one of every 15 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

Illegal immigrants also have become more geographically dispersed, increasingly passing up typical destinations like California in favor of jobs in newly emerging Hispanic areas in Southeastern states like Georgia and North Carolina.

In 2008, California had the most illegal immigrants at 2.7 million, double its 1990 number, followed by Texas, Florida, New York and New Jersey. Still, California’s 22 percent share of the nation’s illegal immigrant population was a marked drop-off from its 42 percent share in 1990.

The latest demographic snapshot comes as President Obama is preparing to address the politically sensitive issue of immigration reform later this year, including a proposal to give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

Though their numbers have soared over the past two decades, the total number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. has declined or remained flat in the last few years. Demographers attribute that to slower rates of migration into the U.S. caused in part by the recession, as well as to deportations and stepped-up immigration enforcement during the Bush administration.

Among the findings:

• One-third of the children of illegal immigrants live in poverty, nearly double the rate for children of U.S.-born parents.

• Illegal immigrants’ share of low-wage jobs has grown in recent years, from 10 percent of construction jobs in 2003 to 17 percent in 2008. They also make up 25 percent of workers in farming and 19 percent in building maintenance.

• The 2007 median household income of illegal immigrants was $36,000, compared with $50,000 for U.S.-born residents. In contrast to other immigrants, illegal immigrants do not earn markedly higher incomes the longer they live in the United States.

• About 47 percent of illegal immigrant households have children, compared with 21 percent for U.S.-born residents and 35 percent for legal immigrants.

• About three-quarters, or 76 percent, of illegal immigrants in the U.S. are Hispanic. The majority came from Mexico (59 percent), numbering 7 million. Other regions included Asia (11 percent), Central America (11 percent), South America (7 percent), the Caribbean (4 percent) and the Middle East (2 percent).

Children of illegal immigrants hold a delicate place in the U.S. On the one hand, the Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that these children — whether they were U.S. citizens or not — were entitled to a public school education. California and a few other states also provide some college tuition breaks to illegal immigrants.

At the same time, the immigrants and their families are among the poorest people in the U.S., easily exploited by employers and subject to arrest at any time. Children who are U.S. citizens cannot petition for their parents to become legal U.S. residents until they are at least 21.

Earlier this year, the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general found that more than 100,000 parents of U.S. citizens were deported over the decade ending in 2007, prompting the department to say it would gather more information about families before deporting immigrants.

The Pew analysis is based on census data through March 2008. Because the Census Bureau does not ask people about their immigration status, the estimate on illegal immigrants is derived largely by subtracting the estimated legal immigrant population from the total foreign-born population.

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ON THE WEB

Pew Hispanic Center: pewhispanic.org

Members of the U.S. Senate will be in Phoenix next week to hear how border violence is impacting the region.

On April 20, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs will hear testimony from Gov. Jan Brewer, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and officials from Arizona communities near the Mexico border.

Drug violence has surged in Mexico. More than 6,000 people died in drug-related violence in Mexico in 2008, more than double the number from the previous year. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, a former Arizona governor, plans to send more than 100 federal agents to the border to help combat the wave of violence.

Some officials also say that rampant drug-related kidnappings in Phoenix are tied to the escalating brutality in Mexico.

The Phoenix field hearing is the latest in a string of similar border hearings held by Congress in recent weeks.

Next week’s meeting is special because senators can talk to people with firsthand knowledge in a state that’s impacted the most, said Mark Buse, Sen. John McCain’s chief of staff. McCain sits on the committee and will attend the hearing with the committee’s chairman, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman.

McCain “thought it was very important to hold a hearing near the border, out in Arizona, where we can hear from . . . everyone who has been affected, everyone who has thoughts on the matter,” Buse said.

Some hearing witnesses, including Gordon and state Attorney General Terry Goddard, have already testified before Congress. Buse said their insights were still helpful.

The others on the list are Nogales Mayor Octavio Garcia Von Borstel, Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Ned Norris, Jr., Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik and Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever.

After opening statements from senators on the panel, witnesses will testify and committee members will ask questions. Like most senate hearings, the public can’t comment or ask questions.

The public can submit testimony to McCain’s office, which could be added to the committee’s record later, Buse said.

It’s unclear what action the senators plan to take after the hearing. The panel is gathering information, so McCain doesn’t have specific proposals yet, Buse said.

“Obviously everything is on the table right now,” the chief of staff said. “The senator believes that this issue is not going to go away.”

With the 2010 census less than a year away, officials have launched a campaign to build trust with undocumented immigrants amid growing concern that millions of people in the country illegally will be afraid to be counted.

At the same time, some immigrant advocates are threatening to tell undocumented immigrants to boycott the census in retaliation for immigration crackdowns, a move that would deny recession-starved cities and towns much-needed federal tax dollars, which are allocated based on population.

The emerging political battle over the census is of particular concern in Arizona, where the huge undocumented population and an ongoing high-profile crackdown have resulted in the arrest and deportation of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants.

The state could lose millions of dollars in federal funding for roads, schools, redevelopment and other projects if large numbers of people are overlooked, said Vianey Celestino, an Arizona spokeswoman for the U.S. Census Bureau.

The census is also used to redraw congressional districts every 10 years. If the census accurately reflects a state’s growing population, it could gain seats.

“We are trying to count everyone,” Celestino said.

During the 2000 census, 63 percent of the state’s residents returned forms. The national response rate was 67 percent, according to census officials.

Census officials estimate that nearly 75,000 Arizona residents were overlooked in 2000, including about 18,750 people in Phoenix, said Tammy Perkins, an official in the Phoenix City Manager’s Office.

A similar undercount in 2010 would cost Phoenix $75 million in revenue over 10 years, Perkins said.

Hard-to-count groups

President Barack Obama has been accused of trying to politicize the decennial head count in favor of Democrats. Last week he nominated University of Michigan sociology professor and statistical sampling expert Robert Groves to run the Census Bureau, drawing criticism from Republicans who fear Obama wants to use sampling in addition to the person-by-person tally to calculate immigrants, minorities and other hard-to-count groups that tend to favor Democrats.

Census officials recently began contacting churches, schools and community organizations to help deliver the message that the census has nothing to do with immigration status.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, for example, plans to ask priests of Spanish-speaking congregations to urge parishioners to participate, said Hispanic Ministry Director José Robles.

The U.S. Constitution mandates that, every 10 years, the government count everyone who lives in the U.S. The Census Bureau does not care about immigration status and does not share the information it collects with enforcement agencies, Celestino said.

Beginning in mid-March, the Census Bureau will send questionnaires to every residence in the country. The forms will ask for the names, birth dates and other information of each person living at each residence. The forms do not ask about immigration status. If questionnaires are not returned by the end of April, Census workers will visit each residence up to six times to try to get a response.

Some community leaders are worried that immigrants in the country illegally will be afraid to answer the door if they confuse Census officials wearing federal badges with immigration agents. But officials said they need not worry about anyone showing up if they mail back the census forms.

“What we want to emphasize is increasing the response rate. That is what our energies are focused on,” said Pamela Lucero, the Denver regional partnership coordinator for the Census Bureau. “Our message is: ‘Send it back.’ ”

Immigration enforcement

Even without stepped-up immigration enforcement, immigrants already were among the most difficult groups to count because of language barriers and cultural fears of the government.

“I know that people are afraid of the different raids we are having in the state, especially in Maricopa County, but we can assure them that this information (will be) perfectly safe,” Celestino said.

There are about 500,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona, or about 9 percent of the population, the highest share of any state in the nation, according to estimates by the Pew Hispanic Center, a research group in Washington, D.C.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Arizona deported 73,000 illegal immigrants during the last fiscal year, up 64 percent compared with the previous year, which officials largely attributed to more state and local police departments enforcing federal immigration laws, including the controversial neighborhood sweeps and work-site raids conducted by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

In response to the immigration enforcement, some immigrant advocates in Phoenix and other parts of the country are threatening to tell undocumented immigrants to boycott the census.

“This (idea) has been tossed around all over America,” said Alfredo Gutierrez, an immigrant advocate in Phoenix who has a daily radio program on La Campesina, a Spanish radio station (88.3 FM). “This is one time they want to count the Mexicans. They didn’t want to before, but they do now. There is a certain amount of hypocrisy and irony in that.”

Michael Nowakowski, a Phoenix city councilman who chairs the city’s census committee, said a census boycott is a bad idea because it would reduce federal assistance for education and other programs that benefit immigrants and their children.

“I believe it would have a huge impact, but the huge impact would be on the immigrant community,” he said.

Arpaio said he has no intention of backing off from his immigration crackdown because of the census.

“Do you really think I am going to stop enforcing the law because of the census? We are going to continue enforcing all the laws including the immigration laws. I don’t care about the census,” Arpaio said.

Remains of 128 found in past six months

Border Patrol agents trained in emergency health care work on three immigrants from El Salvador who had been without water for three days in June 2008.

Illegal immigrant deaths have risen along the U.S.-Mexico border in the past six months despite a nearly 25 percent drop in Border Patrol arrests that suggests far fewer people are entering the country unlawfully.

The number of migrant deaths along the roughly 2,000-mile border increased by nearly 7 percent between Oct. 1 and March 31, the first six months of the 2009 federal fiscal year. The biggest increase occurred in the patrol’s Tucson sector, the nation’s busiest corridor for illegal immigrants coming through Mexico.

In all, the remains of 128 people were found, compared to 120 in the same six-month period the year before, according to just-released Border Patrol statistics.

Yet apprehensions of people crossing illegally from Mexico into Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California dropped to less than 265,000 – a decrease of more than 24 percent from the comparable period a year ago and 37 percent from the first six months of the federal fiscal year that began on Oct. 1, 2006. The number of arrests is generally considered an indication of how many people are illegally crossing the border into the U.S. The more apprehensions, the more people are thought to be coming.

Migrants rights groups say there’s a direct correlation between the number of deaths and increased enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“What we’ve seen is that the death rate has gone up even though the number of people crossing has gone down, the direct result of more agents, more fencing and more equipment,” said the Rev. Robin Hoover, founder of the Tucson-based group Humane Borders, which provides water stations for migrants crossing the southern Arizona desert. “The migrants are walking in more treacherous terrain for longer periods of time, and you should expect more deaths.”

Nearly half the dead were found in the Border Patrol’s rugged Tucson sector, which saw a 30 percent increase from the same period a year earlier. Deaths also rose in the Laredo and Del Rio sectors in Texas, and in the El Centro sector of southwestern California.

No sector approached Tucson’s sheer numbers, where the remains of 60 people were found during the first half of the 2009 fiscal year.

Tucson sector Border Patrol spokesman Omar Candelaria said it was hard to say why deaths increased in his area, especially because they’re not being found in summer, when most deaths occur.

He also said it is difficult to determine how long many of the bodies may have been there because many were skeletal remains.

Dr. Bruce Parks, the medical examiner in southern Arizona’s Pima County, said more than half the bodies his office examined were skeletal remains, meaning they had not died recently. But that is down from first half of fiscal 2008, when 75 percent of the cases involved skeletal remains.

“Many of them are people that died sometime earlier, and it could be more than a year or two in some cases,” Parks said. “It would make sense that you would expect the more apprehensions there are reflects a greater number of people crossing, and the more crossings the greater the number of deaths that should follow.”

Parks’ office also conducts autopsies for several other Arizona counties including Santa Cruz, Pinal and occasionally Yuma — all of which have regularly seen illegal immigrant deaths.

Weather, predominantly in the form of unrelenting late-spring and summer triple-digit heat, is often the key factor in illegal immigrant deaths in Arizona.

Hypothermia from frigid wintry conditions in the desert also occasionally can be fatal for unprepared desert crossers, Parks said.

Hoover said he’s measured where the bodies are being found, and the average death locations are farther and farther away from roads than in previous years.

“So they’re going around the fences, the technology and where the agents are,” he said. “And the farther you walk from a safe place, the more likely a broken ankle becomes a death sentence.”

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (center) said at a news conference Tuesday at the Evo A. DeConcini U.S. Courthouse that authorities should prepare to stop the spillover of drug violence here. More than 60 local, state and federal law enforcement officers attended a border violence summit.

Authorities north of the Mexico border must take heed of the drug cartel violence unfolding in Mexico and prepare to battle it here, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., said Tuesday.

Giffords spoke at a 4 p.m. press conference following a daylong law enforcement summit on border drug violence she hosted.

“Today is a milestone in the history of border security in Arizona,” Giffords said at the Evo A. DeConcini U.S. Courthouse, 405 W. Congress St.

The significance of the summit, Giffords said, was getting 60 federal, state and local law officers together to discuss drug violence in northern Mexico and its spillover into the United States.

Giffords said the summit should focus more attention on getting additional law enforcement equipment and personnel to the border to combat the problem.

Mexico’s deadly drug wars, with cartels battling each other and the Mexican Army, have led to an estimated 7,000 deaths in Mexico since the beginning of last year, Giffords said.

Flanked by 15 area law officers at the news conference, Giffords said violence has spilled north of the border and “is flaring up in numerous states hundreds of miles away from the border and as far away as Canada.”

Giffords said that in Tucson, cartels distribute drugs and operate stash houses and do whatever it takes to protect their “illicit interests.”

A federal study published last year by the National Drug Intelligence Center shows that an unspecified number of Mexican drug trafficking organizations have formed alliances with two drug cartels here, the Federation and the Juarez Cartel.

The cartels, which control drug trafficking from production to wholesale operations and shipping throughout the United States, are in Tucson mostly to ensure their drugs are shipped from Tucson to their ultimate destinations, area law officers have said.

Some of their drugs are sold locally to smaller drug trafficking organizations, which sell here and fuel Tucson’s drug violence, authorities said.

While some local authorities have questioned the extent to which cartels operate in Tucson and point out that drug violence here goes back for decades, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said he has seen increasing cartel violence in southern Arizona.

MEXICO CITY — In their effort to stop the illegal flow of guns and drugs between U.S. and Mexico, officials from the two countries are considering changes to extradition laws to ensure that offenders get the greatest punishment possible.

The proposal emerged from three days of discussions in which U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said “there have been breakthroughs” on how to combat drug cartels along the border.

Holder and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano met Friday with Mexico President Felipe Calderon and other high ranking Mexican officials to discuss how to detect weapons, drugs and bulk quantities of cash at border crossings.

The discussion also focused on coordination between the Mexican navy and the U.S. Coast Guard to intercept offshore smugglers.

Homeland Security spokesman Sean Smith said the U.S. agreed to begin training dogs to work with Mexican handlers. At present, canine units are credited with detecting about 60 percent of the cash, guns and drugs intercepted along the southeastern U.S. border.

Before the meeting with Calderon, Holder told The Associated press that officials are looking at their extradition laws and considering ways to ensure that cartel members and associates are prosecuted in locations where they face the toughest penalties.

“Which way are they going to go? Are they going to stay here? Go there?” Holder said. “We frequently have them charged in both countries, so the question then becomes where can you get the greatest sentence? Where can you have the greatest impact.”

The threat of cartel violence is forcing a new approach to border concerns.

The two countries are considering sending more vetted Mexican law enforcement officials to the U.S. to work on U.S. law enforcement investigations into the drug cartels’ operations.

The Obama administration has already committed nearly 500 more law enforcement officers to the southwest border, some of whom will be checking vehicles leaving the U.S. and going to Mexico for cash and weapons.

On Thursday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Frio County, Texas, found nearly $122,000 in cash and weapons, including 10 live hand grenades stashed in a car. The car, heading south toward Mexico, was pulled over for speeding.

Two U.S. citizens have been arrested and are awaiting charges, according to a law enforcement official, who requested anonymity because the charges have not been announced.

After a conference with U.S. officials Thursday, Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina-Mora said more meetings are needed to develop plans to bring warring drug cartels under control along the border.

Mexico plans to begin checking 10 percent of the vehicles entering the country from the U.S. for illegal weapons and will more closely check outgoing vehicles for drugs and money, Medina-Mora said.

The new vehicle inspection measures are part of Mexico’s overall $1.4 billion modernization of border customs and crossing points, he said. The first such vehicle checks are already being carried out in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas.

There have been about 1,600 drug-related killings in Mexico in the first three months of this year, about 25 percent less than during the last three months of 2008, Mexican officials say. The government says violence has decreased in border cities like Ciudad Juarez after thousands of additional army troops were sent there earlier this year.

CUERNAVACA, Mexico — U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Thursday that more inspections of vehicles headed into Mexico and stepped up intelligence gathering on the U.S. side of the border would be part of an effort by both nations to choke off arms traffic into America’s southern neighbor.

“On the Mexican side, more uniform and routine collection of arms tracing done on a real-time basis” will be required, Napolitano told The Associated Press as she flew to an arms trafficking conference in Cuernavaca.

Napolitano and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder met privately with their counterparts, Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina-Mora and Interior Minister Fernando Gomez-Mont, as well as other Mexican and U.S. officials to discuss tougher penalties for violating the countries’ gun laws as one way of fighting drug cartels blamed for violence on both sides of the border.

Most of the weapons being used in the Mexican drug wars — 6,290 people died last year and more than 1,000 this year — are smuggled across the border from gun dealers in the United States.

Until recently, the U.S. did not regularly inspect southbound vehicles, and the Mexicans didn’t scan the majority of the cars coming into the country. Facilitating legal trade, not catching gun smugglers, has been the prime directive, Mexican officials have said. Now, the cartel security threat demands a new approach.

The Obama administration has promised a crackdown on illegal U.S. weapons sales that supply the drug cartels.

The Cuernavaca meetings come one day after Napolitano announced plans to spend more than $400 million to upgrade U.S. ports of entry and surveillance technologies to help thwart drugs and arms smuggling along the border.

Napolitano said the U.S. and Mexico are in a better position than ever before to take on this fight.

“Now you have the political will at the highest reaches of the Mexican government to take this on and to be public about it,” she said. “That combined with our own interest in taking on these cartels and the resources that we have give you kind of a one-two punch that we didn’t have at that level before.”

Besides the $400 million, which is part of President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package approved by Congress, Napolitano has directed her department to step up its outbound inspections. Customs and Border Protection officials would not provide specific details, but said there were about five outbound inspection operations in the past year.

Two weeks ago Customs officials at the eight railroads between the U.S. and Mexico began scanning rail cars on the way out of the U.S. instead of just on their way in. When U.S. officials see something suspicious in the X-ray, they alert Mexican law enforcement, which intercepts the rail cars in Mexico.

It was as simple as flipping a switch, said Marko Lopez Jr., chief of staff for Customs and Border Protection.

Lopez, who came on recently with the new administration, said he did not know why this wasn’t being done before. “Bottom-line is that we weren’t,” Lopez said. “It’s a huge vulnerability.”