As we look at the damage that uncontrolled illegal immigration is doing to our national security and southern towns, it's often easy to overlook what is happening to the illegal aliens themselves.

Most of them are looking to create a better life for themselves, although they have been led to believe that breaking the laws of the land they want to live in is the way to do it.  Many of those migrants are also losing their lives on the journey, either being killed or dying from the elements or malnutrition.

It has gotten so bad that the Brooks County, Texas sheriff said President Joe Biden's open immigration policies have forced him to create a temporary morgue for his county due to the number of deaths at the border.

"We are in Brooks County, Texas.  The sheriff just brought me over to the morgue they've set up.  This is in response to the number of bodies, dead bodies, illegal aliens, that have died in the country that they are doing their best to try to identify.  This is what open borders look like," Real America's Voice reporter Ben Bergquam said in an interview with the sheriff.  He later added, "This is the reality if open borders.  Everyone that says open borders are 'compassion,' that is what you're creating.  That is what open borders look like.  I can't express to you the smell.  It's terrible.  That's what these guys have to deal with every single day.  That's what you are inviting, more death, more destruction.  The destruction of our country and the death of thousands."

Fiscal year 2022, which ended at the end of September, saw the greatest number of illegal alien deaths as they sought to cross the southern U.S. border.  The total was 856 men, women, and children.  They came because they thought they would be welcomed and the border was open, and they only wound up dying.

Also, the first month of the fiscal year 2023 is not even over yet, and there have been 25 illegal alien deaths.

"If you live along the border, you know the Biden administration and House Democrats have abandoned us.  We are on our own," Representative Tony Gonzales tweeted.

The surge in deaths shouldn't be too surprising.  Illegal immigration has been surging under the Biden administration, which has been doing little to secure the southern border.  When you create an open invitation for people to come, you shouldn't be surprised when they do.

"Immigration experts have stated that Biden and Department Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas are the ones largely to blame for the current immigration crisis," according to Law Enforcement Today.

The millions of illegal migrants come, hoping that once they are here, something will be done to allow them to stay.

"Mayorkas has eviscerated our interior immigration enforcement apparatus, meaning that once an illegal alien enters our country they become virtually impossible to remove," Matthew Tragesser with the Federation for American Immigration Reform said in a statement.

It is a gamble that the Biden administration has encouraged with its failure to secure the border.  This can be seen in the record-high numbers of encounters that the Border Patrol agents are having with illegal aliens.

Our porous southern border is doing no one any good.  It needs to change before 2023 becomes another record year for illegal migrant deaths.

Michael A. Letts is the CEO and founder of In-VestUSA, a national grassroots non-profit organization helping hundreds of communities provide thousands of bulletproof vests for their police forces through educational, public relations, sponsorship, and fundraising programs.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.