Here are some numbers that should give one pause.

Forty-eight Americans were killed in Mexico during the first six months of 2010 — a deadly pace that appears likely to exceed any previous year of homicides on record, according to the Houston Chronicle's analysis of the U.S. State Department's death registry.

The tally doesn't include two Texans reported killed Sept. 30 in separate incidents in isolated areas of Tamaulipas, where the terrorist group known as the Zetas has been warring with their Gulf Cartel rivals in communities all along the Southeast Texas border.

Heck, not only does that not include the two killed at the end of September, but the number fails to include dead Americans killed in all of July, August, and September. And it does not even include all Americans murdered in Mexico -- take, for example, this case.

Three U.S. citizens — a bridegroom, his brother and his uncle, all from New Mexico — were reported by Mexican authorities to have been abducted during a May wedding at the El Se๑or de la Misericordia Catholic Church in Juarez. Their bodies were later found dumped in a pickup truck, but those three homicides do not appear to be included in the registry.

In short, it appears that our own government is not being honest with us about how many Americans are being murdered south of the border.

And, of course, this fails to take into account the number of Americans killed in this country by Mexican nationals illegally in this country. If we add those numbers into the total, I've no doubt that we would see an exponential increase in American deaths due to the craziness in Mexico.

What needs to happen at this point? Closed borders? US intervention in the situation in our southern neighbor? I'm not sure -- but one thing that does need to happen is that the State Department needs to start leveling with the American people regarding this problem -- and then DHS needs to keep track of those deaths caused by illegal aliens so that we know the full extent of the problem.