By Bob Ortega
The Arizona Republic
Border Patrol agents in Arizona apprehended the fewest migrants in 19 years last fiscal year, according to the agency, even as the number of agents patrolling the state rose to a record high.
The 124,631 apprehensions represent a 43 percent drop from two years earlier, and an 82 percent drop from the peak in 2000. For the fiscal year ending last September, more than one third of all undocumented immigrants picked up across the U.S. by the Border Patrol were apprehended in Arizona, the agency reported.
The Border Patrol says that enhanced security has made it more difficult and dangerous to cross. However, the drop is as much “about the state of the economy and the employment market as about border security,” said Paul Lewis, an associate professor of political science at Arizona State University, who has studied immigration issues.
