Enticing illegal aliens.(Correction Please!)

ITEM: "The Senate's failure to pass a broad immigration bill was a major political blow to President Bush," said a CBS/AP story on June 7. "Also in the loser column was the Senate's Democratic leadership.... The legislation now faces a very uncertain future. [Senate Democratic leader Harry] Reid said he hopes to pass the measure eventually, but he devoted much of his post-vote comments Thursday night to accusing Mr. Bush of doing too little to obtain Republican support. 'This is the president's bill,' Reid told a hushed chamber. 'Where are the president's people helping us with these votes?'"

ITEM: The Wall Street Journal reported in its issue dated June 9-10 that after the Senate setback came for Bush's amnesty plan the president planned a radio speech that would strike "a more conciliatory tone than recent stump remarks suggesting his critics didn't want to do 'what's right for America.' Like few other issues, immigration overhaul touches multiple chords in American society: jobs, race, law and general hunger for greater security and order in today's post-9/11, 'global' society."

ITEM: Acknowledging that the immigration reform was flawed in many regards, an editorial in London's Economist (May 26-June 1) nevertheless maintained: "The current bill is better than nothing."

CORRECTION: While appreciating the cordial solicitude about how to handle lawbreakers by our betters in Britain (where "Muhammad" is on the verge of becoming the most popular name among newborn males), we believe the editors at the Economist are all wet--perhaps even more than border-jumpers crossing the Rio Grande.

The American establishment, including the Wall Street Journal and most political leaders in both major parties, is also woefully wrongheaded on this issue. As if to confirm that point, a recent issue of Time magazine has as its cover story "Why Amnesty Makes Sense." Without explicitly acknowledging it as such, the Time article is an out-and-out editorial poorly disguised as news.

Astonishingly, the Time piece with a straight face made the following major contentions: amnesty can work politically; it won't depress wages; it won't undermine the rule of law; it won't necessarily add to the social-services burden; and it doesn't have to spawn more illegal immigration. Well, if it's really that good for us, it should be our permanent national policy, right? Indeed, one wonders why Mexico hasn't adopted this wonderful scheme instead of its own restrictive policies.

The proponents of reform propose solving the problem of illegal aliens by making them "legal." We've been sold that bill of goods before, when we were told it was impossible to deport less than three million of them in the mid-1980s. After that amnesty, we now have somewhere between 12 and 20 million "undocumented" aliens, with the unspecific nature of the number being a telling indication of how little control the United States really has over its borders. As Professor Thomas Sowell writes: "As a result of the current amnesty bill--not honestly labeled this time--will it be 'unrealistic' to round up and deport 40 million or 50 million illegal immigrants in the future?"