Probably responding to increased enforcement efforts in San Diego County, illegal immigrant smugglers traveling by boat dropped a group of 10 off over 150 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. Officials are saying this might be the northernmost smuggling attempt yet. Sea travel is a popular method for illegal immigrant smugglers. In 2010, 867 illegal immigrants were caught on the coast of California, twice as many as in 2009. U.S. Border Patrol estimates that they catch one in four illegal immigrants as they make their attempts at entering the U.S. All 10 immigrants were arrested after being spotted at around 4:30 am near the Ventura County-Los Angeles County line. One had a broken leg and one had a broken nose. Both were hospitalized. The smugglers themselves evaded arrest. Human traffickers often embark from the coast of Baja California carrying boatloads of illegal immigrants who pay as much as $6,000 for the relatively short trip.

Illegal immigrants entering the U.S. from the south face a harrowing and dangerous journey. To make it from Central and South America, they must often pack themselves into cramped, poorly-ventilated trucks and trailers, sometimes catching a ride on the top of a train. Women travelers face almost certain sexual abuse, so much so that surgically implanted contraceptives are recommended for any woman attempting to cross Mexico on their way to the U.S. Northern Mexico is rife with violence, much of it directed at migrants. Hundreds of migrant bodies were found in Northern Mexico this year in mass graves and piled in abandoned barns. Drug cartels, which almost represent a makeshift government in the lawless region on Northern Mexico, kidnap migrants and hold them for ransom. If the money doesn’t show up, they murder them. If a migrant who is captured by drug cartels is lucky, they will be coerced into carrying drugs into the U.S. as they attempt to cross the border. Migrants making the trip by boat do not face as many dangers as those attempting a land crossing. These individuals are subject to the harsh and desolate conditions of the Southwest U.S. deserts where thousands are captured by immigration authorities on the brink of death by dehydration. Hundreds die in the desert of dehydration every year.

This desperation is indicative of the poor living conditions in migrants’ home countries as well as the powerful draw of the United States. Lawmakers attempting to curb illegal immigration have proposed attacking the main incentive that draws them to the U.S.—jobs. One proposed method is the federal database, E-Verify. This database can be used by employers to electronically check the employment eligibility of potential new-hires. It is currently mandatory in several states and there is much speculation that it will be mandated nation-wide, much to the chagrin of farmers who fear they won’t be able to get the workers they need to harvest their crops. Farmers in Georgia are already left with rotting crops after that state mandated E-Verify in June. Clearly, this is an infinitely tricky subject and many believe that illegal immigration is not only unavoidable but actually beneficial to the United States economy.