The Columbian nails it: Our Borders Are Broken.

As previously noted, our borders, particularly with Mexico, are a mess. Today's Columbian nails it with their view:



In Our View:Border Broken
Friday, March 25, 2005
Columbian editorial writers

Polite conversations at courteous summits about North American trade, agriculture and the environment aren't entirely welcome at this point. Not unless they are coupled with a prickly chat about illegal immigration.

When President Bush and Mexico's President Vicente Fox were in Waco with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin this week, illegal immigration should have been more in the spotlight. It was the same week that the nonprofit Pew Hispanic Center released a report that shows the United States is now home to 11 million undocumented aliens, 57 percent of them from Mexico.

More jaw-dropping stats from the report (available at www. pewhispanic.org) include these:

* The number of illegal immigrants here continues to grow at the same rate it did in the 1990s, by roughly 485,000 a year.

* Since 2000, the U.S. illegal population has grown 23 percent. In 1970 there were just 760,000 illegals living in our borders.

* Of the half-million Mexicans arriving in the United States each year, 80 percent do so illegally.

* California has the highest number of illegal immigrants, with 24 percent of the nation's undocumented population. Washington state has less than 3 percent.

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