WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Fewer illegal immigrants were apprehended trying to sneak into the United States from Mexico during the 2008 fiscal year, federal officials said.
The Border Patrol nabbed 705,000 people along the U.S.-Mexico border during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, USA Today reported. Agency figures indicated that figure was the lowest since 1976, when 675,000 people were caught trying to enter the United States illegally.
The Border Patrol uses the number of apprehensions as a yardstick of how many people try to cross U.S. borders illegally.
The most recent figures show that steps such as building a fence, adding more agents and prosecuting more people trying to sneak across the border are discouraging illegal crossings, federal officials said. Also acting as a deterrent is the weak U.S. economy, officials and analysts told USA Today.
"We're definitely making it tougher on them," Border Patrol spokesman Lloyd Easterling said. "I'm not telling you that we've won the war, but we are making headway."
Josiah Heyman, a border expert at the University of Texas-El Paso, said "economic conditions of the U.S. affect migration. Word gets back to Mexico really fast what the job opportunities are or are not."
