Will return next week. I'm at a fellowship sponsored by the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. In the meantime, here is last week's column from The News of Mexico City.

Secreto a Voces

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is finally coming to terms with the schizophrenic interpretation of its own statistics. But it’s doing so by being even more obscure than usual in its efforts to give the American public the notion that it’s succeeding in securing the border. The numbers of illegal migrant apprehensions go up and it’s a sure sign of success. The numbers go down and that’s a sign of success too. Typically, these little games the federal agency plays don’t bother me too much since I doubt the average reader believes their version of events in the first place. But they’ve been especially shady this year and I’ll tell you how. Homeland Security Sec. Michael Chertoff came out last week to announce that there’s been a 20 percent drop in apprehensions along the U.S.-Mexico border compared to last year. This is attributed to a build-up of U.S. Border Patrol agents and technology on the border. They’re scaring the migrants away. According to the department’s own Web site, the drop in arrests “is an indication that there are fewer attempts to cross the border illegally.” Is it though? The Border Patrol has got to be the only law enforcement agency in the country where doing less is a sign of success. Except when they’re doing more, in which case that’s also a sign of success. The entire production sits on the logic that less is good, except when it’s more, then more is good. Oh, and more means less. And less means more. Confused? I am; trying to keep up with the Feds’ version of Three Card Monte can drive me to drink. The, somewhat self-congratulatory, assumption is that a boost in security efforts is deterring Mexican nationals from crossing the border and, therefore, there’s less migrants to catch in the desert. Which is a nice point to consider except for a couple of problems with the data. You see, illegal migrant apprehension numbers are somewhat of a fraud; the same migrant can be captured ten times, accounting for ten arrests by the Border Patrol. It’s like comparing hits on a Web site to the number of unique visitors. Or like comparing the number of issues a newspaper sells to how many people actually read it. If you can get away with it, you pitch the highest number to your advertisers and hope nobody grows wise to you. Thankfully, there are controls in place to keep Web sites and newspapers honest. Not so for the federal government, who is busy selling the best product around, national security statistics. I’ve met migrants in border towns like Naco, Sonora, who’ve tried to cross the border ten times, twenty times, you name it. Each of those failed attempts is carefully noted as another apprehension. So when you start pumping the numbers up, it’s not hard to arrive at impressive ones like 858,638 arrests (this past fiscal year’s stats) or last fiscal year’s, 1,071,972. The Feds do have the real arrest numbers; they just don’t release them to the public. Every migrant that is captured is run through the FBI criminal database, the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. So they know perfectly well who's being captured and how many times. But they only release the generic apprehension data. The entire work of fiction leads to all kinds of wild conjecture by the Feds, the media and, eventually, the public. Here’s Time Magazine in a 2004 “investigation” of the border called “Who Left the Door Open:” “The Border Patrol, by nature an earnest and hard-working corps, is no match for the onslaught. From last October through August 25, it apprehended nearly 1.1 million illegals in all its operations around the U.S. But for every person it picks up, at least three make it into the country safely.” So by Time’s estimate, three million people sneak into the United States every year. But the magazine is not the only one to blame. Up, down, or sideways, the results are touted as a tremendous success every year while the media forgets what was said the time before. Here’s Chertoff speaking at a Washington press conference last week: “In fiscal year 2007, we saw a 22 percent reduction in apprehensions of illegal aliens at the Southern border as compared to the previous year … we’re at the lowest point in the last five years.” Compare that to this April 2006, El Paso Sector quote where arrests of illegal migrants increased 30 percent: "Border Patrol in 2006 is much more efficient.” It’s astounding what this agency can accomplish with its numbers. I believe it is the only law enforcement agency that sees annual increases in its budget whether its stats go up or down. One of these years, there’s going to be tie; and then what will they say? U.S.-Mexico border apprehensions (by fiscal year) 2007: 858,638 2006: 1,071,972 2005: 1,171,396 2004: 1,139,282 2003: 905,065 2002: 929,809 2001: 1,235,717 2000: 1,643,679 1999: 1,537,000 Source: U.S. Border Patrol

-- Michael Marizco