So, messing up on something as simple as "absentee ballots" made Gilchrist qualified for Congress how, exactly? If you lived in the 48th District, you could not have missed all the free airtime on wacko talk-radio and Gilchrist signs sprouting up everywhere - until this past weekend, he was leading in those areas by a long-shot - I think Hugh is correct that 10% is all you can count on for "sealing the borders."
Lots of us are old enough to remember a fairly tight border. The little green vans were always around in the border cities - like the one I'm from.
You knew who the illegals were - they were the Mexican looking folks who didn't drive 1 mph over the speed limit - because back then, the cops didn't hesitate to turn them over to the Border Patrol. In fact, the BP vans would meet them at the locality of the traffic stop. A lot of people got sent back with an outstanding traffic ticket - because the BP refused to let them stay around to answer it!
This all was well known to the people in Mexico. They didn't like it, but they knew that U.S. immigration enforcement was serious. So they didn't try - in other words, good enforcement was a deterrent.
It has only been since about 1975 that this equation changed, as organizations funded by the Ford Foundation at the behest of guys like Sargent Shriver (MALDEF is the best example) began to make traction in the leftist courts, and with propaganda campaigns designed to mislead and deceive people about the legal rights of the police to either enforce or aid in the enforcement of the immigration laws.
The result is plain to see in many American cities, but most visibly on the border, where people now live in fear, because the lawless own the border.
The answer is not surrender, as Hewitt claims. The answer is to enforce the laws for as long as it takes to make clear that enforcing them is what we will do.