Border-crossing deaths become talking point in immigration debate

Last year, the Border Patrol found 422 bodies of migrants who died while trying to enter the United States. And according to the Associated Press, the number of dead has increased at such a high rate in Arizona this summer that authorities have started using a refrigerated truck to store the bodies.

These grisly, tragic deaths have become a rallying cry for some people on both sides of the immigration debate.

Brian Bilbray, the California Republican who heads the GOP-dominated House Immigration Reform Caucus, told The Upshot that he thinks President Ronald Reagan's immigration-reform push, which resulted in the legalization of millions of illegal immigrants, is to blame for the body count.

"You have people up north who don't understand what a monumental mistake it was to provide amnesty in '86," Bilbray said. He argued that past legalization efforts created the assumption among immigrants that the same would happen again. "Hundreds of people die trying to come into our county illegally. Are they willing to take responsibility for that?"

He added: "You can sit way up in Chicago or New York, but if you haven't seen the bodies slaughtered on the highways like I have, you have no idea what a high cost we've paid for the last mistake under Reagan amnesty."

Bilbray says more border security and the universal application of the E-verify system to prevent businesses from hiring illegal immigrants are the reforms that are needed to prevent those deaths.

But immigration enforcement officers say that the increasing body count is partially a result of heightened enforcement. As Border Patrol has beefed up its presence, people looking to cross the border illegally have been pushed into less hospitable, more isolated desert routes, the Arizona Republic reported.

Meanwhile, syndicated columnist Edward Schumacher-Matos made an impassioned plea Thursday for lawmakers to move on comprehensive immigration reform to stop hundreds of border-crossers from dying.

He argued that Americans want reform that includes tougher enforcement of immigration laws as well as a temporary guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for the estimated 10.8 million illegal immigrants in the country:

The alternative is to do nothing and have more scenes such as that of 29-year-old Jorge Garcia. On his way last year to rejoin his family, Garcia, a diabetic, was found in the Japul Mountains on the border with California, dead from what coroners later said was a lack of insulin. Clutched in his fingers was a photo of his daughters.

Arizona's immigration law has energized both opponents and proponents of immigration reform, but nevertheless, Congress is unlikely to touch the issue this year.