On January 7, President Bush proposed a drastic overhaul of our immigration laws that (in the words of the New York Times) “effectively amounts to an amnesty program for illegal immigrants with jobs in the United States....”

In the name of connecting “willing workers with willing employers” and — of course — “promoting compassion,” the Bush amnesty would allow illegal aliens to apply for renewable three-year work permits, which would allow them to travel freely in and out of our country. As “guest workers,” the illegal immigrants would collect the same federal benefits as American citizens or legal resident aliens.

The Bush plan tracks closely with legislation introduced last year by Senator John McCain and Congressmen Jim Kolbe and Jeff Flake, all of whom are Arizona Republicans. It also represents a significant victory for the organizers of last fall’s “Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride.” That nationwide protest attracted busloads of “riders” — most of them illegal aliens from Mexico and Central America — who converged on Washington, D.C., to lobby for amnesty before heading to a final rally in New York City. The event was organized by the familiar menagerie of subversive left-wing groups, including the Communist Party.

As numerous media accounts noted, President Bush made his announcement — before an audience including representatives of major Hispanic pressure groups — just five days before meeting Mexican President Vicente Fox at a hastily called “Summit of the Americas” in Monterrey, Mexico. Like his predecessors, Fox treats illegal emigration from Mexico as (in the words of former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Casteñeda) a social and economic “safety valve.” And like his predecessors, Fox has arrogantly demanded that Washington accommodate Mexico by granting amnesty to Mexicans who violate our immigration laws.

But Fox has grander ambitions. “Eventually our long-range objective is to establish with the United States, but also with Canada, our other regional partner, an ensemble of connections and institutions similar to those created by the European Union [EU], with the goal of attending to future themes [such as] the future prosperity of North America, and the movement of capital, goods, services, and persons,” he declared in a 2002 speech in Madrid. Toward that end, Fox continued, his government was working “to achieve an improvement in the situation of many Mexicans in [the United States], regardless of their migratory status, through schemes that have permitted them access to health and education systems, identity documents, as well as the full respect for their human rights.”

Like Fox, President Bush eagerly supports construction of an EU-style continental government, which would begin with next year’s completion of the so-called Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Conferring amnesty and various benefits on illegal immigrants from Mexico will accelerate the erosion of our southern border and the amalgamation of our country with Mexico. In fact, those developments must occur in order for the FTAA agenda to succeed.

Thus at a time when our nation’s manufacturing economy is reeling, our communities are suffering from unemployment, and our homeland is menaced by terrorism, President Bush and his congressional allies plan to reward millions of foreign criminals in our midst in order to curry favor with a hostile foreign government (that of Mexico) and advance our nation’s descent into a regional government.