San Ysidro

An illegal alien attempting to cross Interstate 5 in San Ysidro was struck and killed Monday night by a hit-and-run driver, authorities said.

Cornelio Carrasco Carbajal, 32, of Mexico, died at 8:45 p.m. on a stretch of I-5 just south of Via de San Ysidro, according to deputy coroner Max Murphy.

Carbajal is the second alien this month, and the sixteenth since Jan. 1, to die while crossing border-area freeways on foot, according to CHP officer Larry Urban. “That half-mile stretch in San Ysidro accounts for almost all such incidents,” Urban said.

Last year, 28 pedestrians, most of them aliens illegally entering the United States from Mexico, were killed on the freeways near the border, Urban said.

Latino activists have long blamed the Border Patrol practice of chasing aliens toward the freeways for boosting the death toll. But Border Patrol officials have denied they use that tactic.

Urban said that the Border Patrol has attempted to corner aliens near the freeways in the past, but said the practice was discontinued in January. That change, along with improved lighting in the area and signs alerting motorists of possible pedestrians, lowered the accident rate this year, he said.