By Dick O'Connor

The panel headed by Ashcroft and Powell is reporting back (as instructed!) to the White House that up to three million Mexican illegals should be given guest worker permits to live in the Us. Eventually they would be given full citizenship. Tom Daschle, Democratic leader of the Senate not only wants the amnesty for Mexicans, he wants it for all illegal aliens; Indians, Pakistanis' Nigerians, Poles, etc. And why not? If we are going to break our own laws for one group of people (Mexicans), how can we refuse to break them for others? Tom Daschle knows that the Democrats will probably get most of the votes, legal or illegal, from the immigrants. The Democrats have the undeserved reputation of helping the underdog, and these people consider themselves underdogs. Sure, people! Come on in! Just ignore the thousands who have applications pending legally. Just come on in and we will ignore our own laws and accept you!

Senator Robert Byrd (Democrat/W. Va.) strenuously objects. He points out correctly that the amnesty granted under the Clinton administration only encouraged more illegal aliens to cross the border. The 2.8 million illegals that were granted amnesty at that time had accumulated over the entire history of the United States. After the amnesty, it only required three years for 3 million more to arrive illegally. Did the first amnesty solve anything?

We are our own worst enemy in this mess. Agri-business (farmers, ranchers, landscapers and, most of all, truck farming cooperatives) continue to hire these illegals without any questioning; or documentation. There is no penalty for this practice. This is an expression of market forces that must be controlled. Most conservatives believe in smaller government. In this case, where a population shift across national borders is occurring, more government intervention is needed. Penalties so severe as to discourage hiring of illegals should be imposed on businesses that provide jobs for the aliens. When businesses start requiring documentation from workers, the jobs will dry up. More and more illegals will try to get authorization to work here. Agri-business could set up employment offices in Mexico for people who want to work here legitimately. We would regain control of our borders when the Mexican population realized that the only way to get work in the US was to obey the law. Sure, the price of lettuce would go up. Wouldn't that be a small price to pay to preserve out nation? This addiction to cheap labor recalls the old Pogo Possum axiom, "We have met the enemy and he is u!"

Mr. Bush has fine cross-border relations with the Mexicans. And they are fine people. But the ones who are here illegally knew when they started for the border that they would be breaking our laws. They came anyway. We have just released a thousand criminals on our unsuspecting society because their country of origin would not take them back, and a federal judge told the Immigration and Naturalization Service that they could no longer be held. Most of these criminals were Mexican. Mr. Bush only sees the good hardworking people of Mexico. He should have visited the impounded illegals at the INS detention center. He should have read the statistics on crimes, including murder, committed in the US, where the criminal was illegal and returned to Mexico, out of reach of American justice.

We can understand Bush's good relationship with Vincente Fox, the new Mexican president. We can even applaud the close relationship. However, the goals of the Mexican president and the American president do not necessarily follow the same path. American sovereignty must never be subordinate to any foreign power, regardless of personal friendship. Mr. Bush, God bless him, needs to take a cold shower and reflect realistically on what he is advocating. He should talk to his father------to Kissinger----even to the loyal opposition like Senator Byrd.

If he persists in this destructive advocacy of the goals of another nation, we will perish in short order. The greatest nation in all history will go down the tubes of accommodation of others.