After Attacks, Traffic of All Kinds Slows at U.S.-Mexico Border

MEXICO CITY —  The attacks on the United States and the security precautions that followed depressed the traffic in people, vehicles, cash and drugs that crossed the U.S.-Mexico border last month, according to new statistics and anecdotal evidence.

The number of illegal migrants apprehended last month trying to enter the U.S. from Mexico fell 40% compared with September 2000, the Immigration and Naturalization Service reported Tuesday, a good indication that illegal immigration declined sharply overall.

Mexican customs reported a 15% drop in southbound commercial vehicle traffic in September from a year before, and drug seizures were off by 80% during the first two weeks after Sept. 11 compared with the same period in 2000. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the flow of millions of dollars in migrant remittances to Mexico is slowing.

Though immigration had been falling throughout the year, the attacks on the U.S. strengthened the trend.

The figures suggest that tighter security has had an inhibiting effect on all kinds of cross-border commerce, both legal and illegal.

Economic worries and long delays at the border reduced the number of vehicles and pedestrian shoppers in the days after Sept. 11, while fears of detection and arrest resulting from closer inspections cut into the rates of illegal immigration and drug smuggling, officials said.

Whether the reductions will prove short-lived could depend on whether war breaks out and for how long, Mexican officials say. A continued slowdown of the U.S. economy also would lessen the appeal of immigration for Mexicans and hurt trade on both sides of the border.

For the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, apprehensions of illegal immigrants fell to 1,235,685, down 25% from the 1,643,679 caught during the previous 12 months, the INS said Tuesday.

Using the apprehension rate as an indicator of overall immigrant flows, illegal immigration has been declining for most of the past year, said Nicole Chulick, an INS spokeswoman in Washington. She said already tighter enforcement and wide media coverage of the deaths of 14 immigrants in the Arizona desert in May contributed to the trend.

“The economic situation is going to certainly put the brakes on immigration,” said Pablo Serrano, a Mexico City economist with the United Nations’ Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

During September, 59,244 undocumented migrants were caught, down from the 97,744 detained in September 2000, a steeper drop than in previous months that can be explained only by “the tragic events of Sept. 11,” said a government official who asked not to be identified.

Mexican news media carried anecdotal reports of a drop in cash remittances sent by migrants living in the United States, but experts caution that there are no hard and fast current figures on the cash flow, which totaled $6.3 billion last year. Over the first six months of this year, Mexico’s central bank reported a 49% increase in remittances.

Elektra, a retail chain in Mexico that also owns the Western Union money order franchise in Mexico, said there has been no appreciable drop in remittance volume through its agencies.

“I would be surprised if they fall, but not if the rate of growth slows down,” Serrano said.

Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UC San Diego, also doubts that remittances have declined, saying most Latino migrants are “recession-proof, given the nature of the work they do.”

U.S. Customs Service officials confirmed a steep drop in drug seizures over the first two weeks after the attacks, saying narco-traffickers probably were afraid the added scrutiny at the border would result in arrests. But confiscations of illegal drugs--and, by extension, overall drug-smuggling activity--have bounced back over the last week, spokesman Dean Boyd said.

U.S. Customs officials also said commercial and private vehicle traffic into the United States from Mexico fell an undetermined amount after Sept. 11. That, combined with Mexican estimates that southbound truck crossings were down 15% in September, adds up to a grim portrait of cross-border trade, which has boomed in recent years.