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ByElliotSpagat The Associated Press MEXICALI, MEXICO A U.S. effort to discourage immi- grants' repeated attempts to enter the country ille- gally by dropping them back in Mexico hundreds of miles away from where they were caught has been sharply scaled back after producing relatively mod- est gains. U.S. authorities insist the Alien Transfer Exit Program has contributed to overall achievements in border security and say the cutbacks reflected a need to shift resources to deal with Central Americans pouring into Texas. The government has flown or bused hundreds of thousands of Mexican men to faraway border cit- ies since February 2008, be- lieving they would give up after being separated from their smugglers. But government statis- tics and interviews with migrants in Mexican shel- ters suggest the dislocation is a relatively ineffective de- terrent, especially for im- migrants with spouses, children and roots in the U.S. After being dropped off, many get on another bus and head right back to where they started. Once there, they reunite with their smugglers for another attempt, taking advantage of a standard practice that they pay only when they cross successfully. "It's a nuisance. That's all," said Pablo Hernan- dez, 50, who lingered in the hallway of a shelter in Mexicali, swapping stories with other migrants after the U.S. government took him on a five-hour bus ride from Tucson, Arizona. He planned to take a commercial bus to the Mexican town of Altar to reunite with his smuggler, who provided a phone num- ber and said he wouldn't demand his $3,400 fee un- til Hernandez made it. The challenges illustrate the limits and pitfalls of massive spending increases on border enforcement. Despite overwhelming numbers of Central Ameri- cans crossing in Texas, the Border Patrol is making strides by key measures, in- cluding a drop in the per- centage of migrants who are arrested entering the country again after being caught. The recidivism rate for all migrants arrested on the Mexican border fell to 16 percent in the 2013 fiscal year from 17 percent a year earlier, 20 percent in 2011, 24 percent in 2010 and 27 percent in 2009. But results for ATEP, as the program is known, were higher: 25 percent last year, up from 24 percent the previous year, down from 28 percent the year before, 33 percent in 2010 and 34 percent in 2009. Last year's 9-point dif- ference between ATEP and the overall rate matched the widest ever. ATEP has barely fared better than "voluntary re- turns," the term for mi- grants who are simply turned around without be- ing charged. Criminal pros- ecutions have yielded the lowest recidivism rates. Without fanfare, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency largely withdrew from ATEP last June after spending $15.2 million to fly 50,295 Mexican men on 421 flights from Harlingen, Texas, to California's Im- perial Valley, which neigh- bors Mexicali. ICE virtually stopped providing detention space for ATEP and pulled back on bus transportation. Thomas Homan, ICE's executive associate direc- tor for enforcement and removal operations, told a congressional panel in March that ATEP was "a good border enforcement strategy" but that ICE shifted money to flying home Central Americans who cross in South Texas, the busiest corridor for il- legal crossings. On Tuesday, President Barack Obama asked Con- gress for $3.7 billion in emergency spending to deal with that crisis. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Patrol, said in a statement that ATEP has disrupted smuggling net- works and contributed to an overall decline in recid- ivism rates. The program, it said, "was designed spe- cifically to create displace- ment and increase time be- tween entry attempts." Asked to provide the cost, Customs and Border Protection said ATEP "uses resources that were already in place ... and cannot be separated from the normal cost of doing business." Until last year, ICE typi- cally paid a night of deten- tion, which cost an average of $119 a person. Air-conditioned buses still leave the Border Pa- trol's Tucson compound each weekday with up to 188 passengers. Two fol- low a 700-mile route east to Del Rio, Texas, where they are dropped off in the neighboring Mexican city of Ciudad Acuna. Two head about 300 miles west toward Mexicali. As ATEP grew, Mexicali became the top destina- tion for those deported to Mexico, peaking at 66,517 in 2012, a 24 percent in- crease from two years ear- lier, according to Mexico's National Immigration In- stitute. Several migrant shelters opened in the sprawling city of 750,000 to handle the influx. Migrants gravitate to a breezy, sunlit hallway to discuss their next moves at the Hotel of the Deported Migrant, which housed up to 300 people a night after opening in 2010. The Mex- ican government offers dis- counted bus tickets and a limited number of free flights to their hometowns, but few consider it. IMMIGRATION Bo rd er e ffo rt s pu tt er s as m ig ra nt s cr os s ag ai n ROSSD.FRANKLIN—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS A young Mexican boy looks at a map of the recorded Arizona border deaths in a well known immigrant shelter in Nogales, Mexico, in 2012. By Erica Werner The Associated Press WASHINGTON A key Re- publican said Friday that President Barack Obama's multibillion-dollar emer- gency request for the bor- der is too big to get through the House, as a growing number of Democrats re- jected policy changes Re- publicans are demanding as their price for approving any money. The developments indi- cated that Obama faces an uphill climb as he pushes Congress to approve $3.7 billion to deal with tens of thousands of unaccom- panied kids who've been arriving at the U.S.-Mex- ico border from poor and gang-ridden Central Amer- ican nations. And they sug- gested that even as the chil- dren keep coming, any final resolution is likely weeks away on Capitol Hill. As House members gath- ered Friday morning to fin- ish up legislative business for the week, Rep. Hal Rog- ers of Kentucky, chairman of the Appropriations Com- mittee that controls spend- ing, told reporters: "It's too much money. We don't need it." Rogers, who'd previ- ously sounded open to the spending request for more immigration judges, State Department programs and other items, said that Obama's request includes some spending to meet immediate needs, and his committee is working to sort that out. But he said other aspects can be handled through Congress' regular spend- ing bills, though no final ac- tion is likely on those un- til after the November mid- term elections. And asked whether the House would approve the spending pack- age as-is, he said "no." BORDER CHALLENGE House chairman: $3.7B request 'too much' By Matthew Daly The Associated Press WASHINGTON Stung by sticker shock, members of Congress are scrambling to lower the cost of a bill to fix veterans' health care amid a growing uproar over long waits for appointments and falsification of records to cover up the delays at Vet- erans Affairs hospitals. At the same time, def- icit hawks fear that let- ting veterans turn more to providers outside the VA for health care could cost far more if Congress, under pressure from pow- erful veterans groups, de- cides to renew that pro- gram rather than let it ex- pire in two years. Lawmakers in both par- ties agree on the need to reform the Veterans Af- fairs Department's health care network — the larg- est in the country — fol- lowing reports of veter- ans dying while awaiting appointments at VA hospi- tals or clinics. The result- ing election-year firestorm forced VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to resign in May. A half-dozen other VA offi- cials have resigned or re- tired since then. The VA's inspector gen- eral has confirmed that at least 35 veterans died while awaiting appoint- ments at the agency's Phoenix medical center alone, but he has yet to re- port on the results of in- vestigations into whether delays in treatment were responsible for any of the deaths. The latest analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates a Senate-passed bill would cost $35 billion through 2016 to build new clinics, hire doctors and make it easier for veterans who can't get prompt appoint- ments with VA doctors to get outside care. The CBO put the price tag of a simi- lar measure passed by the House at $44 billion. More troubling for law- makers are long-term costs. As currently de- signed, the legislation would relieve a big back- log of veterans awaiting appointments by letting them seek care outside the VA system, but that the ex- pansion would expire after two years. Fiscal conserva- tives worried about swell- ing deficits fear lawmak- ers will yield to inevitable pressure from veterans to keep it. "Once a benefit is pro- vided to a large group of people it is hard to take it away, so there will be in- tense pressure on Con- gress to continue the ben- efit," said Ed Lorenzen of the Committee for a Re- sponsible Federal Budget, a Washington-based group that advocates for lower deficits. "I believe in choice and I hope that we will be able to continue to allow the policy change for choice to continue beyond the two years," said Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Veterans Af- fairs Committee. "But what we're faced with now is trying to erase the back- log that is plaguing VA and preventing veterans from getting timely access to their earned benefit of health care." Once fully in place, the provision granting veter- ans easier access to private care could cost the govern- ment about $38 billion a year — almost as much as the $44 billion the govern- ment now spends annually on medical care for veter- ans, the budget office says. WASHINGTON Lower price for bill on vets' care sought By Stephen Ohlemacher The Associated Press WASHINGTON A second federal judge has ordered the IRS to provide informa- tion about lost emails from a central figure in the agen- cy's tea party controversy. U.S. District Judge Reg- gie B. Walton said Friday he wants to know whatever be- came of Lois Lerner's com- puter hard drive. IRS offi- cials say Lerner's computer crashed in 2011, destroying an untold number of emails. At the time, Lerner headed the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. She has since retired. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen has told Congress that Lerner's hard drive was recycled and presum- ably destroyed. If that's the case, Walton said he wants a sworn affidavit saying so by the end of next week. Walton also wants infor- mation about the IRS in- spector general's investiga- tion into the lost emails. Walton spoke at a hear- ing Friday in a lawsuit by a conservative group against the IRS. True the Vote, which says it advocates for the integrity of elections, sued the IRS over delays in its application for tax-ex- empt status. Walton's order came a day after another federal judge ordered the IRS to explain under oath how it lost the emails. U.S. Dis- trict Judge Emmet G. Sul- livan, who issued his order on Thursday, gave the tax agency a month to submit the explanation in writing. Sullivan was ruling in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by Ju- dicial Watch, a conservative watchdog. As part of True the Vote's lawsuit, the group wants Walton to appoint an inde- pendent expert to investi- gate the lost emails. INVESTIGATION 2n d ju dg e wa nt s in fo o n lo st I RS e ma il s Select"Subscribe"tabinlowerrightcorner Complete information for automatic weekly delivery to your email inbox That's it! This FREE service made possible by the advertisers in TV Select Magazine Kindly patronize and thank them. Click on their ads online to access their websites! N EWS D AILY RED BLUFF TEHAMA COUNTY FREE online subscription to TV Select Magazine Digital edition emailed to you, every Saturday! Just go online to www.ifoldsflip.com/t/5281 (You'll only need to go there one time) • Fully searchable online, zoom in, print out pages and more! • No newspaper online subscription or website access required. • Best of all ... it's ABSOLUTELY FREE! 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