Giant pickles and broken borders.(Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986)

"Never follow an animal act or child act," TV legend Johnny Carson famously counseled. That sage advice from the king of late-night variety shows was weighing heavily on this reporter's mind nearly two decades ago as I sat in the "green room" waiting for my cue to go on stage.

No, it was not The Tonight Show on NBC; it was a popular local show on one of the network television affiliates in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was on a speaking tour sponsored by the John Birch Society entitled, "Out of Control: The Immigration Invasion," which was also the title of a video documentary I had just completed for the JBS. And here I was getting ready to step into the spotlight not following an animal or child act, but--a giant pickle!

Actually, it reportedly was the "world's largest pickle." The prize specimen--nearly three feet long, if memory serves--was enclosed in a clear, acrylic, brine-filled case and was accompanied by two engaging college-age fellows who were on a mission to show the giant green vegetable to the world. They had already logged an impressive globe-trotting tour, photographing themselves with the glorious gourd on the Statute of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Canyon, the Great Wall of China, and other iconic world landmarks. And, their vega-photographic meanderings had won them a coveted slot on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. This was big-time stuff!

To make matters worse, 1 learned shortly before going on the show that the host was something of a zany, liberal-left shock jock, whom I'll simply refer to as Mad Marx. Oh great, I thought, I'm toast: caught between a fire-breathing, quasi-Marxist comedian and the Pickle Squad. And I'm supposed to deliver a serious message about the crisis on our borders amidst this madcap hilarity? Yeah, right.

But a funny thing happened. After the expected opening salvo of jokes and jibes aimed at me, the JBS, and my topic by both Mad Marx and the pickle guys, Mad Marx said: "Let's roll some of your video here and see what you've got." The tape was cued up to a series of short clips that I had filmed along the U.S.-Mexico border from California to Texas over the previous 36 months. In scene after scene, illegal aliens were pouring across our border--by the dozens, hundreds, even thousands--virtually unimpeded. Mad Marx and the pickle guys were at first amused, then shocked. "Where's the border fences and the Border Patrol?" they wanted to know.

They were incredulous when they saw scenes from the area of the Otay Mesa next to San Diego known as "the soccer field," where thousands of illegal aliens from all over ...