In recent months, many members of Congress have declared their determination to pass immigration reform legislation that will prevent another wave of illegal immigration.
"I've got one goal," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who has emerged as one of the staunchest proponents of the bill he helped draft as a member of the Gang of Eight. "When all is said and done, there will not be a third wave of illegal immigration."
Now comes word from Mexico of an operation conducted by the Mexican army to rescue 165 would-be illegal immigrants from a "safe house" near the Texas border.
The group, mostly from Central America, had been held there under brutal conditions while their captors telephoned their relatives, demanding money before they would allow the migrants to cross the Rio Grande.
Included in the group, according to news reports, were 77 Salvadorans, 50 Guatemalans, 23 Hondurans, 14 Mexicans, and one Indian. Among them were two pregnant women and many children.
It is people such as these whose influx into South Texas has intensified steadily for the past year. After crossing the Rio Grande, they are taken to safe houses in the area of McAllen before they are divided into small groups and driven up Highway 281.
Before reaching the Border Patrol checkpoint at Falfurrias, they are dropped off and guided around the checkpoint, through a narrow corridor of ranch land on either side of the highway.
Many of the migrants have died of exposure during their long walks to a rendezvous with a vehicle that will take them further north. Their deaths, and the dismay of local residents at the growing sense of lawlessness and disorder, have been the subjects of numerous news accounts in recent months.
Yet the flow continues unabated. Another wave of illegal immigration continues to build.
If the Border Patrol cannot stem the tide in such a relatively confined area, under conditions of intense publicity, and during an intense debate about immigration reform, how can it possibly meet the ambitious border security targets laid out in the bill that will soon be debated by the full Senate?
