Yes, I know: it's not amnesty because we're using a different word now. However, any time the penalty proscribed by law for an offense is waived for all offenders, it's amnesty no matter what you may call it. Do they get to stay here? (Hint: Yes.) Well, that's amnesty. And the effects will be far-reaching and devastating to the country.

What sort of message does it send when people are allowed to violate a variety of laws repeatedly with relative impunity? Not only did illegal immigrants deliberately cross the border without permission, or knowingly overstay their visas, but they break other laws every day they remain here. Even the so-called "hard-working, law-abiding" illegals we keep hearing about use false Social Security numbers to get jobs and bank accounts, lie on applications and other forms, and falsify records and documents on a daily basis. Why should anyone obey the law, when millions of criminals are to be forgiven en masse?

And what will happen after they are given instant legal status? Has anyone bothered to think that through? One of the main reasons we are given for letting them stay in the country is that no one else will do the jobs they do for so little pay... but once they are legal, neither will they! Why would anyone perform hard labor for below minimum wage if they are legally able to look for better work, or demand more money for the work they currently do?

We've been told we can't deport illegal aliens without a steep rise in prices for agricultural products, domestic services and construction. But wages -- and thus prices -- in those areas will rise anyway. Of course, hordes of illegal immigrants will continue to flow across the borders to work for lower than legal wages. According to the Heritage Foundation, legalising between 12 and 20 million illegal immigrants will cost the US economy trillions of dollars, and that includes huge numbers of uneducated, ignorant, and unproductive immigrants -- the kind the mainstream media pretend don't exist. And after all that, we will still have illegal immigrants coming into the country. In other words, we will have gained absolutely nothing from the passage of this bill.

The bill contains provisions that would, we are told, ensure that workers holding the new Z-Visa remain employed and out of trouble with the law, or else they will be deported. Does anyone actually believe that the mere passing of laws ensures compliance? We're talking about relying on swift and accurate responses from the same agency that approved student visas for Mohammed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi six months after they flew jetliners into the World Trade Center.

As soon as the illegals gain legal status, the first thing a hungry government will do is make them pay taxes. Hasn't anyone considered the implications of that? The ACLU and various "immigrants rights" groups will file a flurry of lawsuits charging that expecting permanent residents to pay taxes without giving them the right to vote violates their civil liberties. The more brazen among them will undoubtedly use the phrase, "no taxation without representation." What American can possibly argue with that?

The Democrat-controlled Congress will rush a voting rights bill through (no doubt just in time for the 2008 elections). Instant millions of new Democratic voters -- just add legalisation. Congratulations are due the Democratic party for ensuring that the Republicans will be maginalised for at least a generation... with the eager help of many Republicans, including the President.

And what of this persistent meme that we can't deport between 12 and 20 million people? I have never heard anyone arguing that we should. It's a strawman argument, designed to conjure mental images of stormtroopers kicking down doors in the night and hauling screaming people away. The amnesty crowd likes to pretend there are only two possible solutions to the problem of illegal immigrants -- rewarding them with full legal status or rounding them up for cattle-car deportations. The truth is that there's a middle ground that involves neither amnesty nor mass deportation: enforcing the law.

The only thing on which everyone seems to agree is that millions of people living in the US without papers, permission or rights is a huge problem. The first thing we need to do, logically, is stop the problem from becoming any worse. When President Bush signed Congressman Duncan Hunter's Secure Fence Act of 2006, he made building 854 miles of double-layer fencing at the most common people-smuggling routes across our southern border the law. It's not rocket science. When you have a leak, you have to stop the inflow before you can pump out the water. We've already got the law on our side. All we have to do is enforce it -- and that's all so many Americans really ask. Yet that fence has not yet been built.

After building the border fence to stop the inrush, we need to enforce the laws regarding those who hire illegal workers who are already here. No one seems capable of checking the Social Security numbers that illegals write on their job applications. If the immigration bureaucracy is so disordered and crippled that Mohammed Atta got a visa six months after 9/11, why would anyone imagine it can handle the mass legalisation of up to 20 million people plus all their relatives? To make matters worse, all background checks for these new Z-Visas must be performed within 24 hours of the application. It's a bureaucratic disaster of Biblical proportions waiting to happen. If only Cecil B. DeMille were still alive to film it all.

There's still time to stop this gross injustice from taking place. President Bush himself has come out blasting opponents of his amnesty-that's-not-amnesty plan. (Funny... he finally lashes out hard, and it's against those who have supported him all these years.) He would not have done so if he were not fighting a growing backlash. And just what form is that backlash taking? The kind that carries the most weight in Washington DC... money.

According to the Washington Times, the Republican National Committee, "hit by a grass-roots donors' rebellion over President Bush's immigration policy, has fired all 65 of its telephone solicitors" after a huge dropoff in donations. "Every donor in 50 states we reached has been angry, especially in the last month and a half, and for 99 percent of them immigration is the No. 1 issue," said one fired phone bank employee.

Even if the bill passes the Senate, it can still be stopped by any Representative who happens to remember the Constitutional stipulation that revenue-generating bills must come from the House. Even so, that would just leave us right where we are now -- with open, undefended borders and growing numbers of criminal trespassers in our streets. Further illegal immigration must be stopped and our laws enforced before we can even consider what to do with the illegals already living among us.