“Entrants” can get free flight home again this year.

This Arizona newspaper writer cannot bring himself to use the legal and proper name for illegal aliens. “Entrants” indeed.

Tucson Region

Entrants can get free flight home
Joint program for 3rd summer to reduce deaths

By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 07.08.2006

Mexican illegal entrants caught in Arizona will have a free flight home if they want for the third consecutive summer.
The binational Interior Repatriation Program between the United States and Mexico kicked off Friday morning when an AeroMexico [Why isn’t a U.S. airline designated as the primary carrier?] flight took off from Tucson International Airport on Friday morning with 67 apprehended Mexican illegal entrants on its way to Mexico City.
The U.S. and Mexican governments agreed to resume the program in an effort to reduce the number of migrant deaths and prevent migrants from attempting to cross repeatedly, officials said.
More than 465 people have died crossing in the Tucson Sector in an attempt to illegally enter the country since Oct. 1, 2003, with a record 216 counted in fiscal year 2005, according to Border Patrol figures.
The U.S. government spent $15 million in 2004 and $13.6 million in 2005 to fund the program, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Russell Ahr. This year’s cost will depend on how many take advantage of the voluntary program.
With two flights a day, the program is capable of flying 300 people home per day. The past two years, the flights haven’t always been full, with an average of about 180 people flying home per day as part of the summer program.
In 2005, 20,592 people flew from Tucson to Mexico City on 225 flights, an average of 92 people per flight.
In 2004, 14,067 illegal entrants flew from Tucson to Mexico City and Guadalajara on 151 flights, an average of 93 people per flight.
Those numbers pale in comparison to the number of migrants apprehended daily in the Tucson Sector. Since Oct. 1, Border Patrol agents have recorded about 1,175 apprehensions a day, according to agency figures. In fiscal year 2005, Border Patrol agents caught about 1,200 people a day. In fiscal year 2004, it was about 1,340 a day. The apprehensions don’t necessarily represent the number of migrants attempting to cross because many people are caught making multiple illegal entries into the United States.
The voluntary flights are available to illegal entrants caught by Border Patrol agents in the Tucson and Yuma sectors. Officials will try to encourage minors, women and those who have been apprehended multiple times to participate, Ahr said.
“They don’t want to see those people come back and go through again and be controlled by smugglers because they are vulnerable,” Ahr said.
Entrants from central and southern Mexico will have first priority for the flights, Ahr said.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement will fund and manage the program, which started Friday and will run through Sept. 30. U.S. Customs and Border Protection funded and managed the program the past two summers.