Starting with a speech in Arizona today, President Bush is shopping a plan this week to get tougher on illegal immigration, but the Christian Science Monitor editorial board warns he and Congress had better make sure the focus is first on fixing our nation's porous border with Mexico, not on amnesty for illegals already here.

Without first showing the border can be secured enough to drastically reduce illegal migration, the president's other priorities such as a "guest worker" program should not be implemented. Yes, Mr. Bush did recently sign a bill into law that improves border protection by such steps as adding 1,000 Border Patrol agents. And this week, the president is giving speeches in Texas and Arizona that will appear to show he's now serious about stemming the increasing flow of unlawful migration into the US. But this belated support was probably done under political duress to keep the GOP majority in Congress.

Indeed, Bush does show a new enthusiasm for several practical measures, such as returning illegal migrants captured along the Mexican border back to the interior of Mexico rather than releasing them simply on the other side....But Americans are in a show-me mood when it comes to immigration, and are oh-so aware that past border toughening and the 1986 amnesty for illegals did little to stem the flow. They're also wise to the false notion that a guest-worker program will somehow greatly soak up the demand among those who want to enter the US and thus reduce illegal crossings.

A GOP plan to pass a "comprehensive" immigration bill early next year should aim to secure the borders first before dealing with an increase in legal entries or providing any sort of back-door amnesty to the more than 10 million illegal immigrants in the US. Those businesses which now hire illegal workers and contribute heavily to the GOP should not be the GOP's priority when it comes to security issues such as border controls.....A nation that long tolerates such open lawlessness in both illegal entries and hiring can't claim to be a beacon of virtue to the world. Nor is it safe against terrorism.

This CNN story, courtesy of News8 in Austin, Texas, notes that Southwest border hospitals eat hundreds of millions in uncompensated care for illegals; that jails, courts and schools foot the cost of illegals, too; that the smugglers of illegals coming into the U.S. through Mexico, known as "coyotes," are so brazen as to threaten local law enforcement officers and their families with death; and finally, that illegals from countries other than Mexico game the system by getting caught on purpose because they know they will simply be issued a court summons which nine of ten then ignore, safe and, for the most part, undetected, in the U.S.

In Georgia last week, students and professors gathered to protest the proposed (state) Senate Bill 170, which would bar illegals from getting any state services or benefits. State government would have to validate that recipients of in-state tuition, Medicaid health care, professional licenses, and unemployment - among other things - were legal U.S. and Georgia citizens.

That makes perfect sense. Some Georgia Republicans, including Gov. Sonny Perdue, are opposed to the legislation. Some say employers who hire illegals share responsibility, and we must be compassionate toward those illegals who have made lives here, with their families. I disagree. If illegals are allowed to flout the borders and government programs, then the whole social contract - in which rules and law and order are central tenets - becomes an unrepaired "broken window." That in turn legitimately undermines faith, from within, in our integrity as a nation.

TECHNORATI TAGS: ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, BUSH, AMNESTY, COSTS, MEXICO, GEORGIA

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Posted by Matt Rosenberg at November 28, 2005 04:28 PM