By Eric Green
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The Bush administration has unveiled a new plan to detect and deter terrorist activities and illegal smuggling of people and drugs at the international border between Mexico and the U.S. state of Arizona.

One of the major aims of the new plan, known as the Arizona Border Control (ABC) Initiative, is to prevent more deaths along the border of migrants from Mexico seeking to cross into the United States. Hundreds of undocumented migrants have died in recent years attempting to cross the mainly desert border region.

Asa Hutchinson, under secretary for border and transportation security in the federal government's Department of Homeland Security, said at a March 16 news conference in Tucson, Arizona, that the initiative calls for working with the government of Mexico in using "every available tool to break the cycle of deaths to migrants in these dangerous terrains where smugglers value profits more than human life."

Hutchinson said unmanned aerial vehicles and an increased number of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft will be employed to increase border surveillance of illegal activities along the border. The initiative involves better coordination of border security activities among hundreds of local, state, federal and Native American tribal law enforcement officers to prevent smuggling of migrants and drugs into the United States.

"Notice should be given that it is dangerous to cross" the U.S.-Mexico border, the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson quoted Hutchinson as saying at the news conference. Hutchinson added "it will also not be easy" to cross over into the United States, "because of the enforcement presence that will be there to save lives but also to enforce the law."

The Department of Homeland Security said the ABC initiative is expected to cost more than $10 million in fiscal year 2004. The initiative follows another U.S. plan, called Operation ICE Storm with a particular focus in Arizona. Operation ICE Storm is intended to combat and prosecute human smugglers and dismantle smuggling organizations.

Homeland Security Department officials said that since October 2003 ICE Storm has resulted in about 2,060 criminal and administrative arrests, 162 indictments, and the seizure of 86 assault weapons and nearly $2.5 million.

The department said that local police in Phoenix, Arizona, have credited ICE Storm with about a 30 percent drop in homicides in the Phoenix area in the last quarter of 2003, in comparison with the same period in 2002.

The U.S. State Department confirms that the issue of smuggling of people is a serious American and global problem. The State Department estimates that at any given time there are hundreds of thousands of people in the smuggling pipeline, being warehoused by smugglers, waiting for new routes to open up or for documents to become available, in order to illegally enter the United States.