I agree. We'll have to suffer a terrorist attack out west, or with traceable origins...south of the Rio Grande before there's enough hue and cry to slam the door shut. Even then, enough illegals may yell, NO! that we debate ourselves into a stalemate...until another attack. Then some illegals will decide Mexico isn't so bad, and they'll go back.
I agree with you there is no mandate now for a particularly violent or draconian tactic to seal the Mexican Border (regardless of my own personal feelings on the matter, or the wide consensus of Freepers).
Americans in the last few decades fancy themselves as wanting to be well liked around the world. Isn't that the subtext of the whole Grab-an-Arab Prison Humiliation scandal? The thought that some folks might not like us because one of us put used pink panties on a prisoner's head (a practice, I insist, many NYers pay good money for in the townhouses that dot Chelsea) seems to much to bear for too many people.
Something horrid and dramatic will have to happen before a paradigm change. 911 wasn't it. Further, no matter what, I suspect a good 20% or wo will NEVER go for it.
I'm not happy to report the facts, but report them I must.