America's porous border is right there, down at the end of your front walk.

Right on the other side of that embattled American line in the sand is a faceless, nameless horde of illegal immigrants some people call a roofing crew. They're coming toward you with hammers, shingles, implements of destruction and one crew boss, the only one of them who can speak English.

There are no American flag-waving protesters in your yard, no politicians who have "gone down to the border," no human chain of tea partiers seeking to drive the horde of illegals back from your roofing job.

In the part of Massachusetts where I live, Brazilians, some legal, many not, have stormed the roofing business. The companies employing then charge $6,000 to $7,000 for a new roof. The companies working legally on the up-and-up charge from $9,000 to $10,000.

And it's not like the cheaper company tells you why they're cheaper, either; but, if you've been out of your house in the last 10 years or so, you know why.

Way back when I was a kid, you'd often see a residential roofing job being done by three or four fellows. Often, two of them were father and son.

The crews of illegals are bigger, seven or eight guys hitting your house like ants swarming a dropped ice cream cone. They take one lunch break and they eat in your yard. According to homeowner friends of mine, they never ask to use the bathroom in your house. A buddy who works construction said the illegal crews will often use a bucket in the back of the work van as a toilet. Their bosses insist.

Takes 'em two days. The work's good, too.

You can pay by check, which usually means the boss is working some-semblance-of-legal as far as taxes go. Anyway, what's he risking? How many mornings do immigration agents leave the office to go shake down roofing crews?

A lot of people think we should send troops down to the border, hire more agents, build an electric fence. I'm not asking your opinion on what measures should be taken down on the border, down there in stinging lizard country. If you're like a lot of people, you're pretty bloody-minded on the subject

What I am asking you is, if you knew that everyone on a $6,000 roofing crew was illegal, would you hire that crew or would you hire a $10,000 crew of legal Americans, many of them native born?

People say government's getting too big, that it's taking away all of our freedoms. But no one came to your house last week, arrested your roofing crew, jailed their boss and fined you $5,000 for putting American workers out of a job. I guess the drones missed you, huh? Capitalism is still holding out.

People say President Obama should have gone down to the border, but maybe he should have stopped by your yard, waited for the boys on the roof to come down for lunch, talked to your gardener, and smacked your housekeeper around until she admitted her I.D. was fake.

The border's at the end of your yard. Where the road to faraway starts.

To find out more about Marc Munroe Dion and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion's book of Pulitzer Prize-nominated columns, "Between Wealth and Welfare: A Liberal Curmudgeon in America," is available for Kindle and Nook.