Sunday, October 15, 2006: WASHINGTON: Illegal immigration and border security is not exactly the unnoticed elephant in the room in the upcoming US election, but an Indian-American aspirant for Congress chose to use pachyderms to show just how porous the American border has become.

Raj Bhakta, a Philadelphia native who is running for Congress from Eastern Pennsylvania's 13th District, hired three elephants and a six-piece mariachi band, and splashed through the Rio Grande River that borders the United States and Mexico to prove that border security has broken down.

Bhakta, who is known in American entertainment circles for featuring on Donald Trump's The Apprentice, filmed himself proceeding unimpeded and unnoticed across the border as the Mariachi band played on cheerfully. He then proceeded to distribute the film to television cable networks to drum up publicity.

According to Bhakta's account, "the band played on, the elephants splashed away, and nobody showed up."

"If I can get an elephant led by a mariachi band into this country, I think Osama bin Laden could get across with all the weapons of mass destruction he could get into this country," he told the local Brownsville Herald.

Although the Mexican border is far from Pennsylvania where Bhakta is running for Congress as a Republican challenger, border security is one of his campaign issues. He is trying to unseat Democratic incumbent Allyson Schwartz.

Bhakta, who favours construction of a fence along the border, said he got the idea for the elephant crossing when he saw half a dozen men swimming under one of the international bridges during a trip to Browsville to raise money for his election campaign.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2172033.cms