Omaha.com
While millions of Mexicans and Central Americans risk death and deportation trying to enter the United States illegally, visas to allow unskilled workers to enter the country legally go unused.
In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, immigrants used only 3,904 of the 5,000 employment-based visas available for unskilled workers, preliminary State Department figures show.
Only 358 of the unskilled immigrants entering the country legally came from Mexico. That's barely more than the 320 immigrants who died along the border trying to enter the country illegally in the same year. It's less than four-hundredths of 1 percent of the estimated 929,500 arrests of people entering the country illegally.
Crossing the border illegally means swimming across the Rio Grande, walking through the Arizona desert, hiding aboard trains or other risky measures. The journey can take days or weeks.
Although no one knows exactly how many do enter, the Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates that 5 million undocumented immigrants, mostly from Mexico, live in the United States.