Now that President Bush has put forward his proposal to give legal status to tens of millions of illegal immigrants -- sorry, "undocumented alien workers" -- who have broken America's immigration laws (an amnesty by any other name...), many other large groups of people who have performed "illegal" acts have lobbied Washington to have their crimes officially ignored.  Next up on the list of such programs is America's vast numbers of car thieves, and legal status -- don't call it amnesty -- will be granted to them for the exact same reasons.

1. Millions of people have already done it, so why not just make car "theft" legal?

2. It would be a drain on our resources to track down and prosecute the millions of "unregistered car owners" already in America.

3. Car "theft" is actually an important part of the economy because it creates a market for new cars, and that means jobs.

4. Car "thieves" who come forward and register will be given a temporary three-year registration for their vehicles, reducing the number of illegally owned vehicles overnight.

5. Once all the car "thieves" who just want to be legal, law-abiding owners of their cars come forward and register, law enforcement can concentrate on the few remaining diehard illegals with greater efficiency.

Of course, this does seem to send a message to people who have never stolen a car before that it's okay to steal cars, but the Administration doesn't seem overly concerned about that. Republican detractors of the "guest car registration" program, outraged on behalf of people who purchased their cars, claim that millions of new cars will be stolen because this bill removes any penalty for car theft. Democrats are against the program because it doesn't go far enough towards giving unregistered vehicle owners full and permanent legal registration for their vehicles.

Future decriminalisation bills may include murderers and arsonists, both of whom can also claim to number in the millions and whose "crimes" can be considered important parts of the economy.