Illegal entrants crossing through the Tucson Sector this fiscal year are dying at a rate 14 times greater than they did seven years ago - when the U.S. Border Patrol started its concerted effort to save them. In 1998, the agency began the Border Safety Initiative, asking Mexican and Central American nationals not to cross the desert and putting in place its rescue teams in remote areas. At the end of the program's first year, the agency tallied 11 people dead in its Tucson Sector, about three for every 100,000 apprehensions made. Apprehension numbers this fiscal year are at about...
