Nice that our president is getting a reputation as the friend of lawbreakers and immigration scofflaws.

WOAI Radio:

The debate in Washington on immigration reform has had no political impact, but the debate is having a major impact on south Texas, 1200 WOAI news reports.

Officials say the number of people entering the U.S. illegally is way up and, tragically, the number of undocumented immigrants who have been found dead in the unforgiving Texas Brush Country is way up, and is on path this year to beat last year's record for the number of people found dead in the ranch country.

Linda Vickers, who owns a ranch in Brooks County, which is Ground Zero for the immigration debate, pins the blame directly on talk of 'amnesty' and a 'path to citizenship' for people who entered the U.S. illegally.

She recalls one man being arrested on her ranch not long ago.

"The Border Patrol agent was loading one man up, and he told the officer in Spanish, 'Obama's gonna let me go'."

Border Patrol agents report that immigrants are crossing the border, and in some cases surrendering while asking, "Where do I go for my amnesty?"

"When you have amnesty waving in the wind, you're going to get an increase," Vickers says.  "And when you get an increase, especially with this heat, you're going to get an increase in deaths."

She says the current increase in illegal immigrant entries began last summer, at almost exactly the same time as President Obama unilaterally announced plans to no longer deport young people who came to the U.S. as children with their illegal immigrant parents.

"Washington is directly responsible for these deaths," she said.

This mirrors what will almost certainly happen starting January 1, 2014 with Obamacare. How many will be walking into hospitals and doctor's offices demanding their "free" health care that Obama promised?

Needless to say, this is a rotten turn of events and only makes it harder to justify the kind of immigration reform package that Congress is considering. Unless we can force the government to get serious about border security, we are going to repeat this exercise in immigration "reform" 10 or 15 years down the road.