In 2004, Arizona Border Patrol apprehended 586,000 illegal immigrants crossing the border into the United States.  There was an increase of 184,000 over the previous year—attributed in large part to the $28 million dollar aggressive enforcement initiative enacted last March.

The ICE's Fact Sheet says that the basic mission of the Arizona Border Control Initiative is to "achieve operational control of the Arizona border." A secondary mission is to "Decrease the rate of violent crime and reduce the need for social services in southern Arizona."

Protecting "potential illegal aliens" comes way down the list, although they did assign 60 extra agents for search and rescue.

However "humanitarian" groups are claiming the $28 million was not earmarked for enforcement but to reduce the number of border crossing related deaths. In that sense, they consider the initiative a complete failure.

"What we've seen is the change in approach by the Border Patrol has not reduced the deaths at all, it's simply channeled the people to other, more dangerous paths," said Jim Sullivan, a spokesman for the "Samaritan Patrol" whose  members patrol the border's desert regions with food, water and first aid supplies looking of illegal immigrants  to help. [$28 million fails to slow deaths]

This seemed to be news to the Border Patrol.

"If you're going to say that the sole purpose of the Arizona Border Control Initiative was to reduce the deaths, then you can say that it was a failure," said Michael Nicley, chief of the Border Patrol's Tucson sector.

The Border Patrol in Arizona stopped 586,000 illegal aliens from settling in the United States; flooding our schools, abusing our government resources and bankrupting our hospitals.  [Nearly 600,000 entrants caught, Border Patrol says]

There are some who want to call this a failure.

Yeah, the same people we can thank for the 8 to 10 million illegal aliens we already have. 

This was a great success for Arizona—and a job well done by the Border Patrol.