Overlawyered.com archives -- May 2002 May 10-12 -- Lawyers say taxpayers owe $41 million to smuggled illegals' survivors. Two Yuma, Ariz. lawyers have filed wrongful death claims with the federal government's Fish and Wildlife Service demanding $3.75 million each for the families of eleven illegal immigrants who died in May 2001 while being smuggled through a desolate section of the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in southern Arizona near the Mexican border. The suit charges the government with failing to authorize the placement of water stations intended for use by unlawful visitors, though it knew smugglers of immigrants were active in the desert area. "It's absolutely untrue that anyone ever proposed to put stations where the aliens perished," said Tom Bauer, spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Service regional office in Albuquerque. (Hernán Rozemberg, "Families sue U.S. over Mexican migrants who died in desert", Arizona Republic, May 9; David J. Cieslak, "Families of migrants who died last year file claim against U.S. government", Tucson Citizen, May 8).