We can breathe a sigh of relief now that Hurricane Gustav has spared New Orleans and the Louisiana coast his full fury. But Gustav still ripped the roofs off homes - and managed to rip the cover off an ugly fact about our nation’s broken immigration system.

It seems many illegal immigrants, those who managed to evade stepped-up border patrols and who poured into New Orleans after Katrina to find work rebuilding the city, this week chose the possibility of death over a government-arranged trip to higher ground.