It was hard to miss - because the results of a new national survey of likely Latino voters were released at the La Raza convention - but survey conducted by the Strong America Schools Project found that the biggest concern Latinos in the U.S. have is the quality of education that their children are getting. In other words, the issue that most concerns Latinos who vote in this country is exactly the same thing that concerns pretty much every American with children.

Despite all of the carrying-on about how Latino voters will wreak vengeance of biblical proportions on any politician who opposes granting amnesty to illegal aliens, this new survey confirms what other recent surveys have found: bread-and-butter issues like education, health care, jobs, affordable housing, not amnesty for illegal aliens, are what are on the minds of American Hispanics. A study done by the Pew Hispanic Center two years ago revealed that immigration was eleventh on the list of concerns of Hispanic voters that they surveyed (and it is not clear whether Hispanics are concerned because the believe there is too much immigration or too little).

So why all the fuss about the amnesty bill? For the self-anointed Hispanic leaders, amnesty and mass immigration are a means to greater political power for themselves. The more people of Hispanic origin there are living in the U.S., the more leverage elite groups like La Raza believe they can exercise over the political system.

Just as importantly, amnesty for illegal aliens was something that politicians could actually deliver (even if it isn't something Hispanic voters necessarily care about). Delivering quality schools that prepare Hispanic and other kids for the challenges they will face in adulthood is a tall order. Ensuring access to quality health care, affordable housing, or creating good-paying jobs - that's hard work.

Amnesty for illegal aliens, by contrast, is a piece of cake. You pass a bill, you have a nice signing ceremony in the Rose Garden and, Presto!, you can say you did something that benefits Hispanics. Okay, so you skipped over items one through ten on the wish list of Hispanic voters, but item number 11 is better than nothing at all. Of course, in delivering item number 11, items one through ten would have gone from being a tall order to being an impossibility. But who cares? La Raza would have been happy and President Bush would have burnished his already impressive legacy. Education, jobs, health care…some future administration can worry about those things.

The debate was not only interesting for its own sake, but because it revealed the new political divisions that are likely to shape future political discourse in this country. Most observers see political gridlock gripping Washington as being a byproduct of partisan bickering. To a degree that is accurate. But as was also noted during the immigration debate, this issue did not break along party lines. There were passionate advocates on both sides of the issue from both major political parties.

Rather, the immigration debate was an internecine one: Republicans vs. Republicans and Democrats vs. Democrats. What played out was a struggle for the souls of the respective political parties in America.

Republicans vs. Republicans: The immigration debate exposed the fact that there are really two Republican parties today. On the one hand there are the Reagan Republicans. These are the political heirs to the philosophy espoused by the most beloved of our recent presidents and who reshaped the political map of the country like no one since FDR. Reagan Republicans believe that culture plays a preeminent role in American life and that it is the values and sense of identity that the American people possess - though hard to define - that is the strength of this nation. They believe that the role of government is to keep things on track, but not to mess with success.

While every Republican politician portrays him or herself as carrying the mantle of Ronald Reagan, there is a second Republican Party that has emerged since Reagan departed the political scene. The other Republican Party is the Wall Street Journal Republicans. These are über-Globalists who believe that America is strictly about business and that the overwhelming imperative of the nation is to maximize profits for corporations. In their view, we have entered a new era in which global economic interests transcend outdated national interests. George W. Bush, the MBA in the White House, is certainly the avatar of this new Republicanism.

During the course of the immigration debate we saw the two Republican parties clash. The Reagan Republicans, led by the likes of Senators Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Jim DeMint of South Carolina held fast to the belief that America is about something more than just business. Perhaps lacking the eloquence of the late former president, they espoused the idea that it is the intangibles - culture, national identity, language - that make us a nation and that even in a global economy the nation still has a central role to play.

On the other side, Bush and Senate Republicans like Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona seemed to argue that traditional notions of American must step aside and accept the new global realities. We exist in a global economy and there is an economic imperative that America itself reflect the economic realities of the 21st century.

Democrats vs. Democrats: Just as there are two Republican parties, there are also two Democratic parties. The division in the Democratic Party runs between the traditional labor Democrats and the multicultural Democrats. Since the days of Franklin Roosevelt, the Democrats have traditionally been the party that sided with ordinary workers over the interests of the captains of industry.

In recent years, the labor Democrats have found themselves competing with the multicultural Democrats for the soul of their party. The multicultural Democrats are at war with the values espoused by the people who gravitated to Ronald Reagan. We have sent his battle played out repeatedly over emotional issues like abortion, gay marriage and affirmative action. To this wing of the Democratic Party, the nation itself must be razed to its foundation in order to build what they believe to be a more just and tolerant society. For them, mass immigration is a means of diluting and ultimately changing the culture of the nation.

In the immigration debate of 2007, we saw these intra-party divisions come to a head. Every bit as passionate in their opposition to the Bush-Kennedy bill, Democrats who place the interest of workers ahead of the cultural agenda, such as Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Claire McCaskill of Missouri, railed against the legislation as a death knell for the middle class in America. Even the Socialist Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, vocally opposed the measure because of its likely devastating impact on workers in America. In the end, they were joined by other Democrats - mostly from the heartland - like Ohio's Sherrod Brown, Iowa's Tom Harkin and others.

Democratic support for the bill came mostly from those who are most closely identified with the multicultural agenda. The Democrats most passionate in their support of the amnesty came from the most cosmopolitan regions of this country - New York, Massachusetts, California - where multiculturalism and European-style multi-nationalism are most in favor.

The globalist Republicans and the multicultural Democrats may not have much in common, but they were willing to trade-off with one another during the immigration debate. Expanding multiculturalism is a price the globalists are willing to pay for the advantage open immigration would provide to business interests, especially since the cultural identity of the nation is not all that important to them to begin with.

The multicultural Democrats were prepared to grant business the upper hand for the near term in the expectation that they would eventually be able to cultivate the new immigrants as a political force. Through a combination of grievance politics and promises of a robust social welfare system, the multicultural Democrats saw this legislation as a means to achieve their ends.

Immigration was the first major drama played out along these newly emerging divisions that are shaping American politics, but it won't likely be the last.

FAIR Media Director Ira Mehlman

For years, the language police have gone onto full tactical alert whenever anyone used the word invasion to describe the mass influx of people into the United States illegally. An invasion can only occur when a hostile army crosses the border, we are repeatedly told. An army of illegal aliens taking jobs and using public benefits is not an invasion it's something else - although the language police have never actually told us exactly what to call it.

We can dispense with the semantic arguments: The United States IS being invaded. Large areas of our sovereign territory ARE under control of well-armed, hostile, foreign nationals. Americans enjoying remote wilderness areas in this nation's national and state parks are liable to find themselves confronted by armed foreign militias - mostly from Mexico - protecting marijuana plantations they have established deep in the heart of U.S. territory.

The Mexican drug cartels that have turned vast stretches of the U.S.-Mexico border into a war zone have moved manpower and weaponry into the United States and now have operational control over territory in the interior of this country. The invaders are not a recognized standing army controlled by a foreign government (although there are extensive links between the drug lords and government officials in Mexico), but that does not alter the fact that parts of this country are occupied by hostile foreign forces. The fact that these foreign militias are not under direct control of a recognized government does not mean that what is happening is not an invasion any more than the fact that al-Qaeda terrorists are not under direct control of a recognized government diminishes the threat that they pose.

Speaking of al-Qaeda, if Mexican drug lords can take and hold control of parks and forests within the United States, what makes any U.S. government official certain that radical Islamic terrorist organizations are not doing the same thing? Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's gut tells him that al-Qaeda is planning to strike us again, while intelligence experts tell us that al-Qaeda's operational capabilities have returned to pre-9/11 levels.

Even scarier than the fact that we are currently being invaded, and that Homeland Security acknowledges that terrorists are likely infiltrating operatives into this country to carry out another deadly attack, and that Islamic terrorists carrying European passports are probably entering the country undetected under the Visa Waiver Program, ("Europe could become a platform for an attack against this country," Chertoff said) no one in Washington seems to be responding with any alacrity. Instead, the Bush Administration and leaders of the Senate have dithered on border security in an effort to link homeland security to an illegal alien amnesty and cheap foreign guest workers for business interests.

America has been invaded. It's not just busboys and gardeners, or even freeloaders taking advantage of our social services. It is foreign militias who control sovereign U.S. territory and threaten American citizens. We have officially been invaded.

We senators take time out of our busy schedules to go craft an immigration plan, we work on it for weeks - months even - and do we get any appreciation? No, all we get is complaints. One phone call after another about how you don't like this or how you don't like that. Worse yet, you insist on calling our plan an amnesty, when we've told you a thousand times it's not. And then, to top it all off, you doubt our promises that this time we'll actually enforce the law.

Well, we've had just about enough of your bellyaching. You keep saying that you sent us to Washington to work together. Well, we're working together! You don't like what we're working together on? Tough. We put a lot of time and effort into this immigration bill and we're not about to start all over. We don't expect you to like it - although it would be nice if you made an effort - but we do expect you to learn to live with it. It's the best you're going to get, so shut up already. Besides, let's see you do better.

We give you a grand bargain on immigration, and all you can talk about is how we haven't straightened out the mess in Iraq, or lowered energy costs. Sometimes we wonder why we even bother.

And let's be clear about something else: We're in charge here, not you, and certainly not those loud mouth obnoxious talk radio guys. If you're all so smart, how come you're back there and we're here in Washington? Huh? Think about that.

So, one last time: Stop calling this immigration plan an amnesty. Stop telling us that we're not going to keep our promises about enforcement. And, STOP calling us. We've heard what you have to say and we just don't care, so stop wasting your time and ours.

There is no question that the perception that the bill championed by leading senators and President Bush was an amnesty aroused a visceral response from millions of Americans. But public opposition ran much deeper than many of the bill's supporters care to acknowledge. Americans rejected not only provisions of the legislation, but many of the premises on which President Bush and the Senate authors promoted it.

Premise 1: This nation needs comprehensive immigration reform. This assertion made repeatedly by the president, members of Congress and many in the media, argues that before we can enforce our immigration laws, we need to a cut a deal with the people who break our immigration laws. The people who are living in our country illegally must be afforded a way to legalize their status, and the business interests that have broken other laws by employing illegal aliens must be given a legal means to hire the foreign workers they want. Then, and only then, can we consider enforcing our immigration laws - and few, if any, Americans actually believe they would be enforced even then. (This country does need comprehensive immigration reform, but of our legal immigration policies, not our policies against illegal immigration.)

Premise 2: The status quo is a de facto amnesty. This is a statement that has been made by both Arizona Senator John McCain and Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. The status quo is a de facto amnesty only if the government refuses to enforce its own laws. The idea suggests that the only alternative to a de facto amnesty is a de jure one. As bad as a de facto amnesty brought about through government inaction might be, it is still reversible. Once Congress affirmatively grants people the right to remain, it cannot be undone.

Premise 3: This bill is the best we can do and it's better than nothing at all. Not a single proponent of the Senate bill categorically stated that it was a good piece of legislation. Everyone described it as a flawed bill and the only real alternative to the status quo. It was flawed kind of like the levee system protecting New Orleans was flawed. As far as being the only alternative to the status quo, that is only true if you accept Premise 1, that the people who break our laws have to get something out of the bargain.

Premise 4: The American public supports President Bush's notion of "comprehensive" immigration reform. The polling data that allegedly backs up the assertion that the public favors the Bush-Senate approach to dealing with illegal immigration assumes that there are only two diametrically opposite options for dealing with the problem, with nothing in between. The Time article cites its own poll as proof of public support. The critical question in their poll conducted in late May reads as follows: If you had to choose, what do you think should happen to most illegal immigrants who have lived and worked in the United States for at least two year: They should be given a chance to keep their jobs and eventually apply for legal status, OR They should be deported back to their native country? Okay, the American public doesn't have much stomach for mass deportations, but what about other forms of enforcement? Of course, if you don't give people other options, you can make it look as though there is support for amnesty.

Premise 5: As long as there is some penalty attached, it's not amnesty. The American public isn't much interested in semantic discussions about the definition of the word amnesty. For them, the bottom line is that the people who broke our laws in order to live, work and take advantage of our social safety net, get to live, work and take advantage of our social safety net. The fact that illegal aliens would have to pay a few fines and wait a few years for a green card does not change the public's perception that in the end, the illegal aliens win. The problem for proponents of the bill is not that they did a poor job countering claims that it is was an amnesty; their problem is that the pubic isn't stupid.

Two-thirds of those surveyed were foreign born, meaning that current immigration policies are responsible for importing significant numbers of people who think it's okay to blow-up subways, fly jets into tall buildings, or shoot up an army base whenever they feel offended.

Of the estimated 12 to 15 million illegal aliens in the U.S., how many are Muslims under the age of 30? Nobody is really quite sure, but it is probably not an insignificant number. Another important question: Of the 26 percent of Muslims living in the U.S. who believe suicide bombings are justified, how many would be prepared to actually carry out such a mission? Even if it is only a few hundred committed jihadists, that's still pretty alarming.

So, faced with this unsettling reality, the Bush Administration and prominent members of the United States Senate want to set up a system that would give anyone who fills out an application a visa, within 24 hours, that authorizes them to remain in this country indefinitely and protection against deportation. Maybe the terrorists won't hear about it, and won't fill out application?

Let's hope that the survey itself is not sufficient provocation. "What's missing were responses about what it means among Muslims to be an American, or their opinions about education, health care and domestic issues. Failure to include this stuff lends an impression that American Muslims are different," complained Laila Al-Qatami of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee. "I'd like to see another ethnic group get asked the same question."

Illegal aliens and their advocates think it imposes too many burdens and is not a generous enough amnesty; most of the rest of the population think it's just plain amnesty. Low-skill industries are pleased with 400,000 new guest workers they'd be getting every year; high skill employers think it leaves them out in the cold, while labor unions are unhappy that guest workers will not have a path to citizenship. Business groups, generally, object to a proposed work verification procedure that they would be required to follow, while most everyone else is skeptical that the government will ever sufficiently get its act together in order to come up with a verification process in the first place. Ethnic advocacy groups are screaming about the de-emphasis on extended family reunification in the future; public advocacy groups think the plan will change very little and expand family chain migration. Illegal aliens and the Mexican government are worried about the enforcement provisions of the bill; ordinary Americans believe they are being lied to yet again.

Met with near universal disdain, the authors of the Senate bill have decided that the criticism is actually a compliment. Since they have managed to offend just about everyone, they have determined that they must have come up with one heck of a bill. If nobody's happy, then the bill contains tough medicine for everyone to swallow and is an indication of their political courage.

Or, it might just be a really bad bill.

Here's an idea: Pick a side in this debate and then offend the other guy completely. Make him scream obscenities at you - call you a traitor, or a racist, or a liar. Be bold.

If you want an amnesty have an amnesty. That means for everyone - no conditions. Just fill out an application and you're in. Heck, just skip the application all together, who cares? If you want cheap labor, then tell employers they're free to hire anyone they want, anywhere on the face of the planet. Just get it over with and level with the American public rather than whisper sweet-nothings in their ears while you draw it out. Give Ted Kennedy some credit. That's exactly what he is prepared to do.

If you want to enforce immigration laws, then just enforce them. No bargaining with the people who broke the law, no backroom deals with businesses seeking exemptions so they can get their cheap foreign workers - just a zero tolerance policy for illegal aliens and their employers. Build a fence along the border, issue everyone an electronically verifiable Social Security card with biometric features, put a few scofflaw employers in jail to send the rest of them a message, end birth right citizenship for the children of illegal aliens, and let the chips fall where they may. They may not like you, they'll call you every name in the book, but at least they'll respect you.

We've tried half-hearted measure in the past and they don't work. We've tried to please everyone, or offend everyone equally and that doesn't work. Let's just get it over with: One bill for all the marbles. Winner-take-all.

Up to this point, the designation "do-nothing Congress" seems to fit perfectly. But now the Senate leadership seems poised to change all that by doing something really dumb. They are closing ranks with George W. Bush - who knows a thing or two about charging forward with a half baked plan - to implement an illegal alien amnesty and guest worker bill. They appear, also, to have signed on a group of Republican lawmakers - led by Arizona Senator Jon Kyl - to go charging over the cliff with them.

For a week, senators have been meeting behind hermetically sealed doors to work out a plan to legalize tens of millions of illegal aliens and provide the business lobby with an endless supply of cheap labor, in exchange for yet more promises to control illegal immigration down the line and end family chain migration. Not since Neville Chamberlain's Munich tete à tete with Herr Hitler have discussions been conducted with this much secrecy.

As negotiations near their conclusion, it seems that the long overdue reforms to our legal immigration policy - like establishing some national and public interest criteria - will be even longer overdue by the time they are implemented some time around 2020. From all accounts of what is being hammered out, by the time 2020 rolls around, nobody is going to care anymore after all of the current illegal aliens and their dependents have received amnesty, and the millions of "guest workers" who are contemplated will be demanding to remain here with their U.S.-born kids.

Somehow, a do-nothing Congress doesn't seem like such a terrible thing after all.

Eighteen months ago "youths" in the suburbs that surround Paris and many other French cities began engaging in "civil unrest" that included the wholesale torching of automobiles, the smashing of shop windows, the trashing of churches and synagogues, and the occasional murder. After the initial all-out assault on the French motor pool in late 2005, the "youths" have scaled back their plan to eradicate the Peugeot and Renault and have reduced their car burning activities to a more tolerable (by French standards) level of a few a night.

The "youths," it is widely reported, are angry and alienated owing to high unemployment stemming from rigid French regulations that make hiring a new worker about as onerous and fraught with obligations as adopting a child. What has been largely ignored by the media, however, is that the unhappy youths who have turned many French neighborhoods into no-go zones for le flics tend not to be named Jean-Claude, Jean-Pierre, or Jean-Louis, but rather Mohammed, Ahmed, or Khalid.

The victory of Nikolas Sarkozy in yesterday's election was an acknowledgement of France's immigration crisis that in some ways is at a more advanced stage than our own. From an issue that was dominated just a few years ago by the fringe Nationalist Party headed by Jean-Marie Le Pen, dealing with the consequences of irresponsible immigration policies in France has gone mainstream. In the latest French election, Sarkozy linked immigration and large unassimilated immigrant populations with the country's economic and social welfare crises.

To be sure, there are many differences between the situation in France and that of the United States, but there are still lessons to be drawn from what is happening there. The United States does not have the Byzantine business regulations that stifle economic growth, an extravagant cradle-to-grave social welfare system, labor laws that discourage workers from working, or an anemic below replacement level fertility rate.

What we do have in common with France is a growing socially, linguistically, culturally and economically alienated immigrant population. Even more importantly, with the exception of language, the gap between the children of the immigrants and the rest of the population is growing wider. Instead of antagonism toward the host society whipped up by radical clerics in France and elsewhere in Europe, second generation immigrants in the U.S. are taught resentment of America by ethnic identity groups and multiculturalists. Instead of being part of a demographic push to restore to Allah a Europe that is rightfully His, second generation immigrant youth march with Mexican flags and speak of reclaiming territory that is rightfully theirs. While cars in American cities are not yet turned into Roman Candles on a nightly basis, there are parts of many American cities that are now off limits to members of other ethnic or racial groups, and where even police are reluctant to venture.

In France Sarkozy campaigned on a pledge to retake control of regions of the country now under control of the "youths". The "youths," for their part, have promised more "civil unrest" should Sarkozy be elected. Given France's proclivity for quick surrender the outcome of such a showdown remains in doubt. What is clear is that the United States and other Western democracies had better watch very closely what happens in France, because they will soon be dealing with it themselves.

Members of Congress, by and large, are a pretty serious bunch. They take themselves seriously, and when they introduce a bill it's usually a pretty solemn occasion. When it comes to giving illegal aliens amnesty, normally nobody in Congress is more serious than Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.). He has been very serious about wanting blanket amnesty for illegal aliens for a long time.

The problem for Rep. Gutierrez is that the American public is pretty serious itself about not wanting to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. The public just doesn't see any good reason to allow tens of millions of people who came here illegally to be allowed to remain. So faced with serious stalemate, Gutierrez has opted for silly. His new bill, the Security Through Regularized Immigration and Vibrant Economy, or STRIVE Act (the general exception to the seriousness rule is that members of Congress will give their bills silly titles to create a catchy acronym), introduced today with Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) includes what these two serious lawmakers call a "touch back" provision.

If the American people will not accept the idea of millions of people who came here illegally just getting to stay, then how about we make them all take a trip to the nearest border and come back? Kind of like tagging-up at third before jogging home on a long fly ball. They touch foreign soil and then they come back. Get it? They wouldn't have to stay away very long - maybe a day, says Gutierrez, and when they come back they won't have entered the country illegally. Problem solved.

But even Gutierrez himself cannot help but guffaw and the monumental silliness of this pointless "touch back" exercise. "Is it going to sound somewhat absurd to some people?" asked Gutierrez. "Certainly it is," he said, answering his own question. So far, no one has come forward to dispute him on the last point at least.

The coalition of left-leaning churches and religious groups that gave rise to the Central American sanctuary movement in the 1980s is attempting to reconstitute itself. Alarmed by the recent audacity of the Bush Administration to have the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency actually take enforcement semi-seriously, many of these groups are gearing up to provide sanctuary to illegal aliens, while stepping up efforts to win them an all encompassing amnesty.

The Chicago church that has been harboring Elvira Arellano, a recidivist illegal alien who was caught working at O'Hare Airport using bogus documents, seems to have inspired a lot of liberation theologians - nowhere more so than in Seattle. In response to recent ICE raids of a few local businesses that resulted in illegal aliens actually being arrested and held for possible deportation, the caffeinated do-gooders of the Pacific Northwest have decided that they must do God's work and shield illegal aliens from the law.

There are few cities in the U.S. more PC than Seattle. As one moves still further up the PC pyramid, NPR listeners in Seattle are likely to be found near the pinnacle (as Seattle lacks a Pacifica Radio affiliate to serve the listening needs of those for whom Hugo Chavez is a political role model). So it came as something of an interesting revelation that in appearing on panel discussion (three guests in favor of sanctuary and amnesty, versus yours truly) on KUOW radio that the ratio of listener calls and emails was precisely the reverse.

When the sanctuary and amnesty crowd can't even muster much enthusiasm from an NPR audience in Seattle, how is it going play in Berkeley? Okay, well how about Peoria?

Yes, ideologically, the leadership of the Democratic Party would like nothing better than to grant amnesty to every illegal alien in the United States who isn't a violent criminal or a committed terrorist. But, no, they aren't particularly anxious to pay the political price that an illegal alien amnesty would entail.

Increasingly, it seems that what they would really like is to offer a bill that appeals to the assortment of ethnic and political interest groups on the political left, and then blame the Bush Administration and congressional Republicans for killing it. The Democrats are first and foremost committed to maintaining their newly reclaimed congressional majority and capturing the White House in 2008, and granting amnesty to tens of millions of illegal aliens does not appear to be the best strategy for achieving those ends.

Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which is conducting the hearings process on this year's version of the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill, takes a backseat to no one when it comes to accommodating illegal aliens. Sen. Leahy is also a man who can barely disguise his contempt when uttering the name George W. Bush. So what can we make of the fact that the person Sen. Leahy wants to be the Salesman-in-Chief for the new McCain-Kennedy legislation is none other than George W. Bush? Who better to serve as a virtual human shield than a lame duck president from the opposing party with an approval rating hovering around 30 percent?

The Democrats have polled and focus-grouped this issue from every conceivable angle, and apparently come to the conclusion that no matter what they call it, or how they package it, the American public spells McCain-Kennedy: A-M-N-E-S-T-Y. The Democrats are just not going to take the heat for this one, unless they've got the president and congressional Republicans marching in lock step alongside them.

Leahy is so committed to this policy of mutually assured political destruction that earlier this week he threatened that he would not even schedule a mark-up of the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill without firm assurances of political cover from the White House. "We're not going to waste time on something that the minority, they're going to shoot down," Leahy stated. Sounds more like someone trying to cover his political you-know-what, than a powerful chairman preparing to flex his political muscle.

President Bush has belatedly discovered that if he is to have any hope of getting his amnesty and guest worker program, he must demonstrate to the American public that he is willing and able to do some enforcement. So to burnish his credentials as an immigration enforcer, ICE has suddenly started raiding companies that have been flagrantly violating immigration laws, and even started deporting some of the illegal aliens who are caught.

To his American audience (if he still cares what they think), the administration's sudden interest in immigration enforcement is viewed with suspicion. To his Latin American audience Bush's failure to deliver the immigration goodies is one more grievance against the country they already blame for most of their failures. Guatemalan President Oscar Berger took the opportunity of Bush's visit to lecture him about deporting people "without any justification."

President Berger has 4 billion good reasons for being upset with his American counterpart. Even the mild enforcement effort underway is messing with the $4 billion that the 1.2 million Guatemalans in the U.S. send home every year, which now accounts for about 7 percent of GDP. Amnesty and an open door immigration policy would mean billions more to President Berger and other Latin American leaders. Continued enforcement, on the other hand, might force them to institute political and economic reform.

In a part of the world where the will of the public hasn't traditionally carried much weight, leaders seem to be growing impatient with President Bush's inability to overcome a pesky public that simply won't surrender its jobs, its social services and its ideas about sovereignty, and do as they are told.

The same sort of shameless emotional blackmail is now being used by the illegal alien advocacy network - only they're not trying to be funny. As the government has begun to take baby steps to enforce our immigration laws, the illegal alien advocacy network is resorting to emotional blackmail. If the cover were to be created in 2007, the dog would be replaced by an adorable tyke, and the message might read, "If you punish me, you'll hurt my kid."

As a society we are thankfully loath to harm innocent puppies and children. But our compassion cannot allow us to allow people to use children as human shields, whether we are prosecuting a war against terrorists, or enforcing our nation's immigration laws. Anytime society takes action against parents who break the law, their innocent children are harmed. It gives no one any pleasure when children wind up paying a price for their parents' actions, but there is no alternative. We regret the misfortune that befalls the kids, but we hold the parents, not society, responsible. If there is a figurative gun pointed at the heads of the children of illegal aliens when the law comes knocking at the door, the hand that is pointing it is that of the parents who consciously put their kids in that situation, not society.

So when Mother Jones profiled CNN's Lou Dobbs in an article entitled "Angry White Man," it was logical to expect that they would treat him, well, not kindly. But, beyond the sensational headline, Mother Jones offers some grudging respect for the man who daily excoriates politicians on the left and right for their failure to stop what he forthrightly calls an invasion. They stop short of endorsing Dobbs' views on immigration, but the article acknowledges that he makes some very valid points.

Mother Jones is far to the left of Democratic Party that now controls both houses of Congress. So if Dobbs' formula for addressing immigration can disarm even the hard left, it should certainly be applicable to winning the hearts and minds of the congressional Democratic leadership. "[I]t is in his anti-corporate stances that Dobbs distances himself from the bulk of the mainline right, even as he refuses to align himself with the left. Indeed, Dobbs shares no contemporary comparison," says Mother Jones. Instead, the affable CNN host is a modern incarnation of William Jennings Bryan, known as "The Great Commoner" for his late-19th and early 20th century crusades against "the influence of the robber barons, monopolies and trusts."

By packaging mass immigration together with other economic and trade policies that constitute "a war on the middle class," Dobbs has found the right language to at least get those on the political left to listen. In presenting the issue the way he does, Dobbs forces the left to decide whether multiculturalism is more important to them than economic egalitarianism. Even Mother Jones finds it's a tough choice.