The Associated Press

                 WASHINGTON - A House committee on Thursday approved an amendment that would cut funding for a Homeland
                 Security test program in which illegal immigrants arrested in Arizona were transported to Texas.

                 The two-part amendment, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-Texas, was approved by the committee on a
                 voice vote. The amendment came as the committee was debating an $86.8 billion package for Iraq and Afghanistan.

                 The trial period for the program, in which thousands of illegal immigrants caught in Arizona were flown to four Texas
                 border cities, ended Sept. 30. The policy prompted complaints from politicians from Mexico to Washington.

                 But immigration officials say "lateral repatriation" has proven that moving the migrants away from their smugglers
                 across the border makes them less likely to re-cross in the Arizona desert, where hundreds die of thirst and heat
                 exhaustion each year.

                 The trial program that started Sept. 8 was a success, Customs and Border Protection spokesman Mario Villarreal has
                 said.

                 More than 5,600 migrants had been moved from the Border Patrol's Tucson sector to El Paso, Laredo, Del Rio or
                 Harlingen in plane loads of about 150. Agency officials say the cost, $28,000 to charter each plane, is paid from the
                 Border Patrol budget and is well worth the saved lives.

                 U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, has urged an end to the policy, and Bonilla has filed legislation that would
                 mandate that migrants be returned to Mexico near where they were arrested.

                 The second part of the amendment prohibits a form that allowed San Antonio immigration officials to release Central
                 and South Americans into the streets of Laredo, Bonilla spokeswoman Taryn Fritz said.

                 Fritz said the form amounted to a promise that the illegal immigrants would come back for deportation proceedings.
                 No one really expected them to, she said.

                 Laredo Mayor Betty Flores was incensed to learn that dozens of immigrants were being released into her city
                 because of overcrowded detention centers.

                 Bonilla hoped introducing the amendment would help make peers aware of the problem in his district, and was
                 pleased to see it readily passed, Fritz said.

                 "I think what happened is Congressman Bonilla went before the committee and point-blank said 'If this was
                 happening in your district would you want it to continue?"'