Citizen Staff Writer
Law and Order Report

FERNANDA ECHÁVARRI

fernanda@tucsoncitizen.com

Drug smugglers have recently been using more creative methods for transporting drugs through the U.S-Mexico border, officials said.

Border Patrol agents Monday morning found more than 1.6 pounds of heroin sewn into a man’s vest, said Michael Scioli, a Border Patrol spokesman.

“This particular incident was pretty unique,” he said.

Agents watching the camera system saw the man crossing into the United States illegally near Nogales at 8 a.m. Monday.

The man’s vest had dozens of small pouches containing the heroin, Scioli said. The drug’s estimated street value is more than $95,000.

The man and the heroin were turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

“The last creative attempt we saw was last month, when a man had insoles full of heroin inside his shoes,” he said.

Tuesday afternoon, agents seized the largest amount of marijuana for fiscal 2009 – which began Oct. 1 – almost 2 tons in a stolen pickup south of Arivaca, Scioli said. The marijuana, with an estimated street value of $2 million, was found in the abandoned truck from Tempe, he said.

The amount of marijuana smuggled north of the border increases in September and October, harvesting months for the plant, Scioli said.

The Border Patrol’s Tucson sector leads the country in drug seizures, he said, with more than 770,000 pounds of marijuana confiscated from October 2007 through August.

Citizen Staff Writer
LAW AND ORDER REPORT

ERIC SAGARA

esagara@tucsoncitizen.com

Nogales, Son., has been named in a U.S. State Department travel alert prompted by an escalating drug war in Mexico.

The border city has been the scene of daylight gunbattles in public places such as shopping centers, and criminals have targeted U.S. citizens traveling between Nogales and Hermosillo along Route 15, the alert states.

The alert was issued Tuesday and expires in April. It urges citizens to take precautions while visiting Mexico. They include:

• Restrict travel to major roads – especially toll routes – during daylight hours and do not travel alone.

• Stay in well-known tourist areas within cities that have adequate security.

• Visit only legitimate businesses and tourist areas while avoiding areas where drug dealing or prostitution may be taking place.

• Give an itinerary of your trip to a friend or family member that is not traveling with you.

• Carry a cell phone that has international service.

• Don’t wear expensive-looking jewelry or displaying large amounts of cash or expensive items.

• Do not visit areas that may be hazardous during nighttime hours.

• Avoid demonstrations or other large gatherings.

According to the alert, the increased violence is part of a war between drug cartels for control of major trafficking routes along the border as the Mexican government cracks down on the drug trade.

The cartels use paramilitary units in some cases, and at times criminals can be seen wearing police or military uniforms, according to the U.S. government.

Some criminals have used hand grenades and automatic weapons in confrontations.

U.S. citizens who have been the victims of a crime or feel they may be a target should contact a U.S. consulate.

Citizen Staff Writer

GARRY DUFFY

gduffy@tucsoncitizen.com

Pima County has approved a grant of $25,000 to help a humanitarian group maintain emergency water stations in the Sonoran Desert outside of Tucson .

The county Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 Tuesday to fund Humane Borders’ 90-plus water stations throughout the desert.

The supervisors first funded the water stations in 2001.

Opponents of the grant have criticized the county’s annual funding for the water stations as a violation of laws against aiding and abetting illegal immigration.

“Is this not breaking our laws, especially federal law?” asked Wes Bramhall, a past president of Arizonans for Immigration Control.

Joe Sweeney, the Republican opponent of Congressional District 7 incumbent Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a Democrat, also criticized the board’s vote.

“Is this not aiding and abetting and harboring illegal aliens?” Sweeney said.

None of the supervisors responded.

Supervisor Ann Day voted against the funding without comment. In the past, Day has cited her concern that the program gives illegal crossers a false sense of security.

In other business, the supervisors approved increases leagues and tournaments must pay to play at the county’s Sports Park in Marana.

• Softball leagues: From $400 per team to $475 per team.

• Volleyball leagues: From $95 per team to $150 per team.

• Youth baseball leagues:

From 12 to 15 players per team, age 14 and under: $70 for each player; 13 and under: $65; 12 and under: $60; 11 and younger: $55; 10 and under: $50. Fee also changed to $1,025 per team regardless of the number of players.

• One-day tournaments: From $28 per team with no park entry fee for spectators to $28 per team with $3 spectator entry fee.

• Two- and three-day tournaments from $36 per team with no spectator entry fee to $36 per team with $3 spectator fee.

Citizen Staff Writer

GARRY DUFFY

gduffy@tucsoncitizen.com

Funding to maintain water stations for illegal immigrants in the Sonoran Desert outside Tucson will be a topic for action at Tuesday’s meeting of the Pima County Board of Supervisors.

The supervisors will consider a $25,000 grant to Humane Borders to assist the nonprofit agency in continuing to place and maintain water stations for illegal border crossers and others in danger of dying of thirst in remote areas.

The board has voted to provide such financial assistance to Humane Borders each year since 2001.

The annual allocation discussion by supervisors draws both supporters of the program and critics.

Backers say Humane Borders’ 90-plus water stations save the lives of persons walking through the desert, especially in hot weather months where sun exposure and temperatures can kill.

Opponents say the stations serve people entering the United States illegally, and may provide illegal crossers with a false sense of security that they can expect to find the water stations.

Some of the water stations have been vandalized.

County officials point to reasons beyond humanitarian for helping to pay for the water stations: It costs less to do so than the costs to recover, store and repatriate the bodies of illegal crossers who die in the desert.

If you go

• When: 9 a.m. Tuesday

• Where: Pima County Administration Building, 130 W. Congress St.

Citizen Staff Writer
LAW AND ORDER REPORT

RYN GARGULINSKI

rynski@tucsoncitizen.com

Customs and Border Protection officers Wednesday started the fiscal year with a 14-pound heroin seizure at the border in Nogales, a news release said.

Officers at the Dennis DeConcini Port of Entry noticed a Jeep driver growing nervous during routine questioning, the release said.

Officers called in a drug-detecting dog.

The canine sniffed out five packages of heroin hidden inside the gas tank, the release said.

The estimated street value of the haul is $648,000.

The driver, whose name was not released, was arrested and turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for further investigation. The heroin and vehicle were seized.

It marks the first seizure of the fiscal year, which began Wednesday and runs through Sept. 30.

The Nogales port had a record-breaking fiscal 2008, with 25 heroin seizures. The release said officers confiscated 252 pounds of the drug, with an estimated value of nearly $11.5 million.

The Associated Press

ARTHUR H. ROTSTEIN

The Associated Press

Border Patrol arrests of illegal immigrants fell 16 percent during the first 11 months of the fiscal year in the Tucson sector, the busiest corridor along the Mexican border.

The drop continues a trend from last year – and may reflect the state of economic conditions in both the United States and Mexico as much as it does enhanced enforcement efforts, a spokesman says.

Through the end of August, agents in the 260-mile sector arrested just under 300,000 illegal immigrants.

That’s 16 percent fewer than the nearly 359,000 caught during the first 11 months of fiscal 2007.

Meanwhile, apprehensions plummeted more than 78 percent in the Yuma sector during the same period – from 37,108 to 7,966. That comes after arrests in the 125-mile Yuma sector plunged almost 68 percent in fiscal 2007 from the preceding 12-month period.

Though fiscal 2008 ended Tuesday, Customs and Border Protection officials said figures for all 12 months of fiscal 2008 are unlikely to be released before mid-month.

Rob Daniels, a Tucson sector spokesman, and Yuma sector spokesman Ben Vik, attributed the dips to several reasons.

“There are a number of different elements for any change, including of course our right mix of manpower, technology and infrastructure,” Daniels said.

National Guardsmen supplemented the Border Patrol until July.

The now-completed two-year mission deployed as many as 6,000 guardsmen along the entire southwestern border as the Border Patrol launched a hiring program to double the number of its agents.

The Guard’s presence in a variety of roles allowed the Border Patrol “to be more of a deterrent,” Daniels said. “The intent was to prevent the crossings, to prevent the deaths from occurring.”

The number of illegal immigrants who died in Tucson sector deserts also dropped by 20 percent, from 193 to 154, in the first 11 months of fiscal 2008.

Added Border Patrol agents, fencing and other infrastructure such as powerful lighting, observation towers and improved roads all have helped reduce apprehensions by making it tougher to cross into Arizona, Daniels said.

But he added, “Obviously, the economy in both the United States and Mexico is always a factor.”

With the economic downturn, fewer jobs have been available for illegal immigrants, particularly in fields such as construction, he said.

Employer sanctions enacted by the Arizona Legislature have dissuaded hiring of illegal immigrants, Daniels said.

“It’s removing the draw, the attraction, and then our enhanced enforcement operations have tried to . . . break the smuggling cycle,” he said.

Those include such programs in Tucson as Operation Arizona Denial, in which 70 persons arrested daily in designated high-trafficking areas are prosecuted in federal court and given jail time or formally deported.

Citizen Staff Writer
STANTON COLUMN

If a federal officer manhandles, handcuffs and arrests a woman way out in the desert, what’s a gal to do? Pay the small fine and slink away?

Not if you’re Kathryn Ferguson. Not if you’re one of those courageous activists who regularly put themselves in harm’s way to save lives.

Ferguson was headed to federal court Tuesday when the government dropped the misdemeanor charge of “creating a nuisance” that had been filed against her after a bizarre incident Jan. 11.

Although pleased by the dismissal, Ferguson still is appalled by the actions of federal officials on a roadside outside of Arivaca as well as the U.S. marshals who fingerprinted her in Tucson.

The well-known dance teacher has volunteered for five years with Samaritans, doling out water, food and medicine to save the lives of illegal immigrants – hundreds of whom die in our desert each year.

“Kathryn has more experience in the field for Samaritans than anyone else. Anyone,” says Bill Walker, the group’s pro bono lawyer. “She’s never had an altercation with any law enforcement officer of any type. There’s never been a complaint against her.”

So sitting in a Samaritans car Jan. 11 with another volunteer and that woman’s 12-year-old son, Ferguson didn’t worry when three men parked a truck behind them.

But the men, in plainclothes, soon demanded identification and explanations.

Ferguson said that when she asked for their names, agencies and badge numbers, a man later identified as Bob Ruiz of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, hit her in the chest, shoved her against the truck, handcuffed her and detained her for about 1 1/2 hours.

“She was traumatized by this,” says Walker, who has photographs of Ferguson’s bruises. “Every time we’d have to meet with her witness (pretrial), she’d be in tears by the time we were done. She was severely shaken.”

Ferguson says her fear kicked in after the incident in the desert, and she spent two weeks sleeping with every light on all night.

Even worse than that encounter, she says, was the rude and vulgar treatment she endured when sent to be fingerprinted by U.S. marshals, who screamed at her repeatedly and unexpectedly put her in a cell for 15 or 20 minutes.

Both instances surprised her.

Given the repeated instances of federal charges being filed against Samaritans and then dismissed, is a lawsuit or administrative complaint in order? Ferguson is considering such options.

Walker, meanwhile, says most Border Patrol and other federal agents are humane and “don’t have an ax to grind” with Samaritans.

The failure is the government’s lack of “any kind of policy recognizing we’re the good guys and we’re doing good work,” he notes.

The lawyer, like many others, is hoping that when a new federal administration takes over next year, whether Republican or Democratic, a sane policy toward humanitarians in the desert finally may be put in place.

Until then, people such as Ferguson will keep battling such challenges to their work.

It’s not Samaritans policy. But it’s clearly Samaritans principle.

Billie Stanton knows humanitarian aid is never a crime. Reach her at bstanton@tucsoncitizen.com and 573-4664.

BILLIE STANTON

bstanton@tucsoncitizen.com

Citizen Staff Writer
LAW AND ORDER REPORT

A.J. FLICK

ajflick@tucsoncitizen.com

A Mexican man was sentenced to 21 years in prison Monday for shooting at a truck filled with illegal immigrants, killing two.

Pima County Superior Court Judge Richard S. Fields gave Martin Gaxiola Flores, 20, a sentence identical to that given co-defendant Rosario Humberto Araujo-Monares last week.

The two men, both illegal immigrants, were indicted on first-degree murder charges in the March 30, 2007, deaths of Jose Antonio Perez, 30, and Consuelo Perez Roman, 28.

Both men pleaded guilty to two second-degree murder charges.

The men admitted they participated in a drug hijacking the previous year and were recruited to shoot at the truck carrying the immigrants, believing they were trying to stop drug traffickers.

Court records show Araujo and Flores were with two other men waiting for a vehicle carrying a large load of marijuana in the desert west of Green Valley.

When a pickup filled with 23 immigrants and two smugglers drove up, the bandits – bajadores – opened fire with four assault rifles, according to court records.

The driver, one of the smugglers, was injured by a bullet and fled with his partner, court records said.

The woman sitting in the front seat between them, Roman, was killed.

Perez, whose two children were among the group of immigrants, was in a camper shell on the truck bed and was killed.

Prosecutors asked for two consecutive 22-year sentences, but Fields imposed two concurrent 21-year sentences.

With 549 days’ credit for time served, Flores will spend 19.5 years in prison.

The Associated Press

The Associated Press

The Border Patrol’s growth to more than 17,000 agents – from 12,000 two years ago and nearly double from eight years ago – has been a boon to towns and small cities along the 1,952-mile border with Mexico, many plagued by poverty and high unemployment.

“The Border Patrol had a very noticeable presence two or three years ago. Now it’s overwhelming,” said Ray Borane, former mayor of Douglas, (population 17,000), where a half-dozen restaurants are packed with Border Patrol agents at lunch.

The new jobs are welcome even as residents grumble that heightened security has hampered business by creating longer waits to cross the border.

In many towns, the Border Patrol is one of the biggest employers, with some of the best-paying jobs. An agent starts at $36,658 a year, and after three years can be making about $70,000, counting overtime.

In Yuma County, hundreds of new agents have rented or bought homes since 2006, said Ken Rosevear, executive director of the county Chamber of Commerce.

Evidence of the spillover effect is abundant. Jaime Rodriguez at homebuilder D.R. Horton Inc. said he sees at least one Border Patrol family a week at his sales office in McAllen, Texas, where a new Border Patrol station is under construction.

In Eagle Pass, Texas, (population 26,000), Border Patrol hiring in the past two years has pumped $15 million into the economy and contributed to a 15 percent increase in sales tax revenue from last year, said Sandra Martinez, executive director of the city’s Chamber of Commerce.

The Border Patrol’s El Centro sector in southeastern California has 1,050 agents – up from 707 in 2006 – and plans to reach 1,100 next year, solidifying its position as one of largest employers in a region with 160,000 people. This spring, the agency opened a $17 million headquarters building in Imperial.

El Centro Mayor Jon Edney said the Border Patrol is the biggest thing to hit the region since the state of California opened two prisons in the early 1990s.

“This is huge,” said Edney, whose 18-year-old daughter cleared a background investigation to become a Border Patrol agent. Another daughter’s boyfriend was hired this year.

Edney, who also runs a property management company, said he has rented houses or apartments to more than two dozen agents so far this year, compared with a half-dozen in all of last year.

After moving to El Centro in July for his first Border Patrol posting, Glen Ufland, 23, of Buffalo, N.Y., spent more than $2,000 for a bed and dining room set at a Big Lots furniture store. He bought a plasma television at Best Buy.

Stan Selby, 31, of Annapolis, Md., pays $700 a month for a one-bedroom apartment and eats at restaurants near the new shopping mall.

El Centro (population, 40,000) is the seat of Imperial County, an agricultural powerhouse whose malls cater to Mexicans crossing the border to buy electronics, clothing and household items. The county unemployment rate hit 25 percent in August. And the median household income was $33,674 in 2004, according to the most recent Census figures.

Kris Poirez, who was raised in Imperial Valley and joined the Border Patrol last year, said the region has few career choices.

“You’re either law enforcement, a teacher, or you have a family-owned business,” Poirez, 29, said as he patrolled a remote, dirt desert road. “That’s how it works here in the Valley. That’s how you get by.”

Not everyone has benefited from the Border Patrol’s largesse. Some complain that the influx of agents is driving up rents.

Larry Allen, who owns a Chevrolet dealership in El Centro, lost business when the Border Patrol decided two years ago to repair its own vehicle fleet. The agency also hired away three of his best mechanics.

“It’s hard for me to compete when they can guarantee more than the open market will pay,” Allen said. “They pay more than I can afford to, and they give all the government benefits.”

Citizen Staff Writer

FERNANDA ECHÁVARRI

fernanda@tucsoncitizen.com

A volunteer with a humanitarian group was found guilty of littering after he left full water jugs for immigrants crossing the desert earlier this year.

U.S. Magistrate Bernardo P. Velasco ruled Monday that Daniel Millis littered when he left the water in a national wildlife refuge. Velasco imposed no penalty, suspending the sentence and fine.

Millis received the citation Feb. 22 while he and two other No More Deaths volunteers were placing the 1-gallon jugs on a trail at the Buenos Aires National Wildfire Refuge, according to Walt Staton, a spokesman with No More Deaths.

Millis refused to pay the $175 fine and instead requested a trial, Staton said.

“I feel like this is a passive-aggressive message from the government,” Millis said after learning of the ruling.

“It says that what we were doing, in essence saving lives, is illegal, but that there’s no punishment for it,” he said.

Millis filed for an appeal Thursday. He said the verdict was offensive because No More Deaths collects trash and empty water bottles when dropping off new ones.

Millis said he found the body of Josseline Jamileth Hernandez Quinteros, a 14-year-old girl from El Salvador, while putting out water for immigrants two days before receiving the citation.

“It’s a sad thing to witness and then to be given a fine two days later for trying to help,” Millis said. “She could have been alive had she found our water sooner.”

Syndicate
IMMIGRATION

As they recall the failure of immigration reform in Congress, Democrats want to come off as the good guys.

This means burying the fact that their patrons in organized labor instructed them to kill any compromise that included guest workers – a concept AFL-CIO President John Sweeney termed “a bad idea (that) harms all workers.”

And it means trying to refute a new Spanish-language television ad from the McCain-Palin campaign that blames Barack Obama and other Senate Democrats for undermining immigration reform in 2007 with procedural delays and “poison pill” amendments intended to make the legislation unpalatable to Republicans.

Translated, the ad says: “Obama and his congressional allies say they are on the side of immigrants. But are they?

“The press reports that their efforts were ‘poison pills’ that made immigration reform fail. The result: No guest worker program. No path to citizenship. No secure borders. No reform.

“Is that being on our side? Obama and his congressional allies: Ready to block immigration reform, but not ready to lead.”

That is exactly what happened. It was smart but cynical politics.

Led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrats were able to please the unions and deny a Republican president a huge legislative victory, all the while making it look as if the opposing party was to blame for the debacle.

Luckily, some members of the media kept their eye on the ball and put the blame where it belonged: on Reid and the Democrats.

The Washington Post’s David Broder, in a column published in June 2007, blasted Reid for going “out of his way to rewrite (the immigration bill) to meet the demands of organized labor.”

Now, in response to the McCain-Palin ad, Democrats are practicing revisionist history.

Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey said in a statement released by the Obama campaign: “To say that Barack Obama and Senate Democrats blocked the bill that Republicans filibustered is hypocritical and not true.

“John McCain has lost his credibility when it comes to the immigration issue. . . . (He) cannot attack Democrats on immigration in Spanish while pandering to the extreme right Tancredo wing of the Republican Party in English.”

I understand that Menendez is trying to earn Obama’s good graces after being a vocal supporter of Hillary Clinton in the primaries. But did he really compare McCain to Tom Tancredo, the nativist congressman who also sought the GOP nomination in this year’s primaries?

Senator, I know Tom Tancredo. I’ve written about Tom Tancredo. And John McCain is no Tom Tancredo.

One of the few things that these men share is a strong dislike for one another. In one debate, McCain described Tancredo’s explanation of what makes someone an American as “beyond my realm of thinking.”

Others on the left are also lending a hand to Democratic efforts at damage control. They include groups dedicated to the admirable goal of achieving comprehensive immigration reform.

What is not so admirable is the way that these groups have turned against McCain, whom not long ago they praised for fighting the good fight on the immigration issue. Now they claim that McCain has flip-flopped.

Baloney. They’re the ones who flip-flopped, and for no grander reason than because we’re in an election year.

“We are stunned,” declared Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, a Washington-based liberal-leaning organization in a statement.

“A Spanish-language ad approved by Sen. John McCain accuses Sen. Obama and the Democrats of derailing immigration reform? He knows better. The whole political world knows better. Comprehensive immigration reform was blocked not by Democrats but by Republicans. . . . Immigrants and Latinos are intelligent. They know the difference between fact and fiction.”

I always appreciate it when non-Latinos are patronizing and tell me what I should or shouldn’t know. I know this much: Some folks inside the Beltway are so eager to put a Democrat in the White House that they’re putting party before truth.

They include Latino groups such as the National Council of La Raza and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund who, as Sharry said, should know better.

During a conference call this week with reporters, NCLR Vice President Cecilia Muñoz also criticized the ad and called immigration an issue that “tends to determine who the good guys are and the bad guys are for Latinos.”

That implies that these advocacy groups can tell the difference. That’s the point. Blinded by partisanship, they haven’t a clue.

E-mail San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Ruben Navarrette Jr. at ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com.

RUBEN NAVARRETTE

The San Diego Union Tribune

WHAT YOU THINK

CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll of 942 registered voters nationwide conducted Sept. 5-7. Margin of error: Plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Who would better handle illegal immigration if elected president?

Obama McCain Neither Unsure

Date of survey % % % %

Sept. 5-7 38 54 6 3

Aug. 29-31 42 51 7 1

Aug. 23-25 43 48 7 2

July 27-29 42 49 7 1

April 28-30 41 49 8 2

Source: pollingreport.com

Citizen Staff Writer

FERNANDA ECHÁVARRI

fernanda@tucsoncitizen.com

Members of a local humanitarian group will release a report on alleged immigrant abuse along the Arizona-Mexico border at a congressional briefing Wednesday afternoon.

No More Deaths compiled more than 400 interviews with immigrants at their aid stations during the past two years and recorded accounts of abuse, Walt Staton, a spokesman for the group said in a news release.

The report “Human Rights Abuses of Migrants in Short-Term Custody on the Arizona/Sonora Border,” is a result of the interviews where immigrants reported abusive treatment during their apprehension by the Border Patrol, Staton said.

The organization has aid stations in Nogales and Agua Prieta, Son., where it provides food, water and medical care to those repatriated to Mexico by U.S. authorities, he said.

“With every bus load of repatriated migrants, we hear testimonies that they weren’t given enough to eat, had little access to water after being in the desert for days, and were denied medical attention,” said Maryada Vallet, an emergency medical technician with the organization.

Border Patrol spokesman Michael Scioli denied such abuse.

“If there were any allegations of abuse, Border Patrol would be under a full-on investigation by Homeland Security and a third party,” he said.

Walton said No More Deaths hopes to “bring the realities of the desert” to federal representatives to create custody standards.

Democratic Rep. Raúl Grijalva will host the briefing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. The report will be shared with other human rights groups Thursday in a briefing by Amnesty International, Staton said.

Border watchdog giving Congress report alleging abuse of illegal immigrants

The Associated Press

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Dismissing a White House veto threat, the House voted Tuesday to end a pilot program giving Mexican trucks access to U.S. highways.

The Bush administration stressed that the United States is obligated, under the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, to open up American roads to Mexican truckers, and that terminating the year-old demonstration project would have repercussions for American trucks allowed into Mexico. Passage of the House bill, it said “would pose significant and immediate risks to U.S. interests.”

The pilot project, which permits up to 500 trucks from 100 Mexican companies access to U.S. roads, is opposed by trucking, consumer and environmental groups, who say it would eliminate American jobs and that Mexican trucks are subject to less stringent safety regulations. They say Mexico lacks adequate drug testing and hours-of-service standards and that the program could contribute to smuggling and insurance fraud.

“I’m outraged that the Bush administration for political purposes would jeopardize the safety of the traveling public in the United States,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the House Transportation subcommittee on highways.

The 395-18 House vote was well above the two-thirds needed to override a presidential veto. The bill would end the authority of the administration to go forward with the program without congressional approval. The Senate Appropriations Committee has attached similar language to a transportation spending bill, although that bill is unlikely to be enacted before President Bush leaves office.

Congress in December passed legislation banning funding to “establish” a program to allow U.S.-certified Mexican trucks to carry loads across the border, but the Transportation Department said that bill did not apply to a program that had already started. Several groups, including the Teamsters, Sierra Club and Public Citizen, have gone to federal court to challenge that interpretation.

The administration last month said it intended to continue the pilot program for two more years.

Citizen Staff Writer

FERNANDA ECHÁVARRI

fernanda@tucsoncitizen.com

Human trafficking has become more common nationwide, and federal agencies have joined to raise awareness of the problem, officials said.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched a campaign Tuesday to encourage the public to report possible human trafficking and for victims to come forward and report abuse.

“We want people to know there are special programs and special visas for victims of human trafficking in Arizona,” ICE spokesman Vincent Picard said.

Arizona is the capital for human smuggling, Picard said. Human smuggling is not the same as human trafficking, he added.

Human smuggling is the violation of a nation’s border, and human trafficking is a violation of a person, he said.

“Although human trafficking cases are not nearly as common as human smuggling here, one case is just too many,” Picard said.

Traffickers force people to work without pay. Victims often are assaulted, intimidated and kept in stash houses.

Earlier this year, agents from the Tucson sector of the Border Patrol found 48 people in a two-bedroom apartment in Rio Rico who were being kept against their will without food and water, “plus it was so hot inside that agents could see moisture on the windows,” said Michael Scioli, a Border Patrol spokesman.

Traffickers often lure victims with false promises of good jobs and better lives, then force them to work under brutal and inhumane conditions, officials from the U.S. agencies said.

“It’s also sexual slavery. Women are being taken against their will for prostitution,” Picard said. “In many instances these women think they are signing up for one thing, like crossing the border into the United States, but they’re put to work against their will.”

“Many times the abuse begins in the crossing process,” Scioli said.

Scattered through the Sonoran Desert are “rape trees,” vegetation with women’s undergarments hung on them, he said.

“The rape trees are like trophies to the men who take people across the desert,” he said. “Human traffickers do not care about the people; they only care about the money they are worth.”

Maryada Vallet works for No More Deaths, a humanitarian group that works closely with border crossers in Tucson and Nogales.

In the past year, there has been an increase in violence and organized crime against people who are crossing the border, and an increase in trafficking rings, she said.

“What used to be just a drop house has become a place where people are held naked and handcuffed against their will and put to work without pay,” she said.

The agencies will distribute posters and air public service announcements with information on how to report possible victims of human trafficking, and train agents on how to help the victims.

The Associated Press

ARTHUR H. ROTSTEIN

The Associated Press

A member of a southern Arizona Indian tribe who has been putting out water for illegal immigrants crossing the desert for about seven years said Thursday that he has again been told to stop.

Mike Wilson has ignored an admonition to stop the practice since 2002 and has been operating four water stations on one part of the Tohono O’odham Nation for several years and two others just south of the Mexican border, all in cooperation with the humanitarian organization Humane Borders.

The water is set out in 55-gallon drums along routes heavily used by illegal immigrants to try to cut the number of heat-related desert deaths.

“The (Tohono O’odham) nation has been adamant in not cooperating with any person or groups in the social justice community in trying to mitigate the deaths on tribal lands,” said Wilson, 59, a resource manager for a charter high school in Tucson.

Calls to Tohono O’odham tribal Chairman Ned Norris Jr., Baboquivari District Chairwoman Veronica Harvey and tribal spokesmen were not returned immediately Thursday.

Some of the busiest smuggling routes in Arizona cut through the Tohono O’odham Reservation, which shares 75 miles of border with Mexico and which has registered a disproportionate number of illegal immigrant deaths in the state, mostly heat-related. Arizona has been the focal point for illegal immigrant trafficking from Mexico for most of the past decade.

The Border Patrol says the agency doesn’t break out migrant deaths on the reservation, but has documented 154 fatalities since Oct. 1 across the agency’s Tucson sector, which includes most of the Arizona-Mexico border. That’s a 21 percent decrease from the same period a year earlier.

The Arizona Daily Star, which has tracked border deaths for years, said the bodies of 70 illegal immigrants were recovered on the reservation in 2007. Eighty-three were recovered between Jan. 1 and mid-June this year, according to the newspaper.

In June 2002, the reservation’s Baboquivari District Council passed a resolution prohibiting Wilson from putting out water in the district. The council resolution said illegal immigrants and smugglers were breaking immigration laws, threatening tribal members for food and rides, breaking into homes, littering, cutting fences and trading drugs to tribal members for information.

Wilson said he’s been threatened with banishment by the tribe’s public safety director and attorney general’s office if he doesn’t stop putting water out for migrants. However, tribal officials have largely left a water placement ban to be decided by each of the tribe’s 11 districts.

On Saturday, a police officer told him to take down a water station he has nicknamed St. Matthew, Wilson said. “I told her I would respectfully decline the instructions to take down the water station,” he said.

Wilson said he felt a responsibility as a human being, a Tohono O’odham member and a pastor to do something.