However, efforts like this have now taken a backseat to the issue of undocumented immigrants, border security and comprehensive immigration reform.
Meanwhile the ranks of guys who do have the power to detain suspected illegal immigrants, Border Patrol agents, have swelled from 11,000 in 2004 to 20,000 today.
In the spirit of Virgil's Aeneid and Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Master, it gives voice in symphonic fashion to an assortment of participants (immigrants, border patrol, soldiers, activists, presidents, people dead and alive) involved in the debate on walls.
Elias Bermudez of Immigrants Without Borders campaigned for George Bush in 2000 and 2004, and is currently trying to win Hispanic votes for Mr McCain.
He said the play, which concerns the plight of illegal aliens fleeing poverty and oppression in Latin America, deals with attitudes toward immigrants and borders.
His top priorities for reform have been a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, strengthened border security and interior enforcement, and a streamlined legal immigration system.
Even if they catch illegal immigrants, the border patrol office here has no budget to put them in jail.
The bill, which would regularise the position of around 12m illegal immigrants, tighten border security and create a "guest-worker" programme, stalled in the Senate last week.
The sweeping Senate bill would offer legal status and eventually citizenship for an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, tighten border security, and speed visa reviews for more than four million immigrants who have applied legally and are waiting in backlogs.
