2,000+ Mexicans killed at US Border in 4 Years Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - Milt Shapiro More than 2,000 Mexicans dead in four years crossing U.S. border AFP - 5/25/2002 OAXACA - More than 2,000 Mexicans have died in the past four years attempting to cross into the United States to reach the American dream, a Mexican university president announced Friday. More than one million people each year illegally cross the 3,200-kilometer (2,000-mile) border between Mexico and the United States, said Jorge Santibanez, president of the Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF). Slamming U.S. policy on immigration, Santibanez urged the Mexican government to move forward quickly on a migration accord with the United States that will allow 3.5 million Mexicans to become legal residents there. The researcher said that due to stepped-up security by U.S. authorities since the September 11 terror attacks, migrants set on entering the United States illegally have been forced to cross at more remote, dangerous points. "This is unacceptable between two countries which say they are partners and two presidents (Mexico's Vicente Fox and U.S. President George W. Bush) who call themselves friends," Santibanez said, speaking at a conference in the southern city of Oaxaca. "The deaths are not accidental" as the United States makes out, Santibanez said, underlining that they were "due to a policy that forces Mexicans to cross via the desert and into exposure to people traffickers." ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-05.26.02-06:21:37-21077