Marchers Honor Dead Migrants

In hopes that the deaths of 14 illegal immigrants in the sun-scorched Arizona desert will persuade the government to ease its immigration policy, about 100 activists staged a demonstration Friday to honor them and hundreds of others who have died trying to enter the United States.

“These people have not died in vain, and they are not forgotten,” said Roberto Martinez, a migrant rights activist with the American Friends Service Committee in San Diego. “We have a policy [on immigration] that is not humane.”

Activists, carrying small crosses reading “No Olvidado” (Not Forgotten), staged an hourlong procession from Christ the King Catholic Church to the city’s Mt. Hope Cemetery, where indigent migrants are buried.

“These people were looking for a better life, but, like the times of Jesus, they were put to death at the hands of others,” said the Rev. Eddie Samaniego, pastor at Christ the King. “It was our policies and laws that caused these deaths.”

Although the demonstration--called the Blessing of the Unnamed Grave--had been scheduled days earlier, it took on extra poignancy after 14 migrants were found dead this week in the desolate stretch east of Yuma, Ariz.

The 14--all male, ranging in age from teens to early 40s--were in a group that had apparently been abandoned without enough water or food by the smuggler who had guided them across the border. They died of heat exhaustion.

Twelve others survived the searing heat of the San Cristobal Valley, but were suffering from exhaustion and dehydration when found by Border Patrol agents and airlifted to a Yuma hospital.

The migrants, who came from the southern states of Veracruz and Guerrero, were headed to North Carolina, according to Mexico’s foreign ministry.

Border Patrol officials on Friday called off the search, declaring themselves confident, based on conversations with survivors, that all are accounted for.

Authorities on both sides of the border are hunting for the suspected smuggler. In Mexico City, President Vicente Fox said: “Already there has been sufficient identification of who did this and surely we will have an arrest soon.”

Activists blame the Border Patrol’s Operation Gatekeeper for the increasing number of deaths in recent years. The Border Patrol has dramatically increased the number of agents in places such as San Diego County and El Paso and erected fences and lights along stretches that once were easily crossed illegally. As a result, border crossers have attempted more risky routes in mountains and deserts far from the main buildup.

According to the Border Patrol, eight migrants died in 1998 in the Yuma sector; 10 in 1999; 26 in 2000; and four since Jan. 1. For the entire border, from San Diego to McAllen, Texas, the death figures are 260 in 1998; 236 in 1999; 367 in 2000; and 118 since Oct. 1.

Heat exhaustion was blamed for 33.5% of the deaths in 1998; 24.2% in 1999; and 36.8% in 2000. The leading cause of death is drowning, slightly ahead of heat exhaustion. Migrants have drowned in the Colorado River, the All-American Canal and the New River.

Although Operation Gatekeeper was begun during the Clinton administration, activists have failed to persuade the Bush administration to reconsider the strategy.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation have petitioned the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to declare that Operation Gatekeeper is an abuse of the country’s right to control its border.

President Bush called Fox to express condolences over the “horrible deaths” of the 14.

A Bush spokesman said the two leaders “reaffirmed the importance of our ongoing efforts on border safety and migration, to ensure that tragic events such as this do not happen again.”

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Times staff writer Ken Ellingwood contributed to this story.