Border Arrests Drop In Arizona

Apprehensions of undocumented immigrants at the border has long been used by friend and foe alike to determine the rate of illegal crossing. This year the number of apprehensions in Arizona and across the border has dropped. The Border Patrol has been quick to crow it was because of toughened enforcement. Human rights and immigrants advocates are more skeptical, attributing the decline to the recession or to the fact crossers are trying in more remote and dangerous areas. The news is welcomed by some as a spur to comprehensive reform and to redirecting law-enforcement to stopping drug and gu)n smuggling. (See Arizona Republic article.