AMNESTY BY ANOTHER NAME

This has to be one of the worst ideas ever, yet it's gaining acceptance with startling swiftness: Illegal aliens from Mexico can now use their matricula cards to access government (meaning taxpayer-funded) services in more than 100 cities and 13 states.

The card has been issued by the Mexican government for more than 100 years to keep track of its citizens in the United States. But across this country cities and states are increasingly recognizing the card, too, as officials seek ways to identify residents in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and try to better serve immigrants.

Meaty paragraph, that. Mexico tracks its citizens here, but does nothing to help get them back there. It also, apparently, does a better job tracking people in the United States than we do. In the name of 9-11, cities are just letting the matricula card stand in for visas, passports, citizenship. And why do American cities want to "try to better serve (illegal) immigrants"? With whose money are these cities serving these "immigrants"? What next--voting rights for non-citizens? Well, organized labor is certainly pandering to the illegal aliens among us, and given labor's electromagnetically bound relationship to the Democrats and to presidential candidate Dick Gephardt, yes, some sort of voting rights drive is probably in the works.

The failure to deal with illegal immigration is probably the single most damning failure of the Bush administration and of our government generally. That failure led directly to 9-11 (before and during Bush's watch), and led directly to the Beltway sniper rampage (before and during Bush's watch). The Bush administration must curb illegal immigration into this country one way or the other, but of course it won't fearing a Hispanic backlash and Democrat demagoguery. Which says much about our Balkanized and generally dishonest politics nowadays.