516 Die Crossing the Border Illegally

From sfgate.com My comments in bold.

One aspect of the red-hot immigration issue these days is that a lot of people die trying to get into this country. In 2005, 516 immigrants died, a 40% increase from the previous year.

""Rick Oltman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors stricter limits on immigration, said a fence would do more to cut the death toll than establishing a guest-worker program would.

"The answer is deterrence," he said. "The most humane thing to do is to let people know they're not going to make it so they don't risk their lives."

The Mexican Foreign Ministry's death toll mirrors the tally maintained by the U.S. Border Patrol, which counted 473 dead during the fiscal year that ended Sep. 30, 2005.

That tally also was up more than 40 percent over the previous year.

Those who lost their lives ranged from 11-year-old Cristian Peréz Ramirez of Oaxaca, who died in a car crash in San Diego County while migrating into the United States, to 64-year-old Antonio Mendoza of Chihuahua, who drowned in the Rio Grande. Authorities were unable to identify 150 of the 516 dead.""

This is a grim reminder that the border issue is primarily one of safety. Although I have posted many times about my concerns of terrorists entering our country, the death toll for the Mexican migrants is staggering. If an amnesty-friendly bill is passed by Congress, can we expect another 40% increase of border fatalities?
At that pace, 722 could die in 2005 .If so, how can this be deemed responsible legislation? Here is a annual projection base on a continued increase.

year deaths total

2004 516 516
2005 722 1283

2006 1011 2294
2007 1415 3709

According to these projections there will more Illegal aliens who will die trying to cross the border than people who died during the 9/11 attacks. I don't believe this is an outrageous claim considering I'm only extending the numbers by 2 years at the current rate of growth (40%) over the last two years.

I sumbit it is irresponsible to allow this continued planned obslolesence to pass as border security. Our borders are designed to protect us from disease, criminals, terrorists and anyone who may have a negative impact on our country. Although I am the first to admit that the vast majority of migrants are honest hard working people who want to become Americans, we as a sovereign nation have a right andresponsibility to determine those good people from the afore mentioned undesirables. Not only will it save American lives, but Mexican lives as well.