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You berate the USBP for failing to do their job, then in a subsequent paragraph you admit they are understaffed and underfunded.

Not only do they show courage every day but they have shown courage in exposing Bush's amnesty-on-the-installment plan for what it really is.

Perhaps the FBI agents who frantically tried to search the computer and belongings of suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui in August 2001 should have kept their obedient little mouths shut as well? Truth is, their bosses misunderstood the law on foreign intelligence surveillance warrants.

With all due respect to your well written post, I will take seriously the word of the men and women who are down there on the front line, rather than the pandering machinations and press release pap of Karl Rove.

I did not intend to berate the USBP as much as to point out that they were carping about their own failure to control the border, however difficult that task might be. It has happened many times in the past. Examples include the listless fighting as the truce date approached in Korea, and the holding action in Vietnam before the final US withdrawal.

When the motivation to succeed fades, performance suffers. It becomes more important to avoid mistakes than to accomplish missions, more important to follow rules than accomplish objectives.

Part of the problem comes from the active hostility to their mission from MANY city and state authorities that have passed "sanctuary" laws forbidding cooperation with the INS. So they face a difficult task to execute, but that does not make them experts on policy.

I still believe that sealing our borders will be impossible as long as the incentives to penetrate them illegally remain so strong. We will not be able to reduce that incentive without providing a legal alternative, along with proper identification, documentation, and tracking, as the President suggests. And we have no hope of learning who is already here if we treat them as criminals. Of course, they are criminals in that they entered illegally, I can't argue with that, but their undocumented presence here is an invitation to crime, exploitation, and a host of other problems, all bad.

If the incentive to sneak in for economic reasons is removed, and those who do enter are identified, the illegal entries will be reduced drastically. Over time, the number of undocumented outlaws will decline to a manageable level, and we may reach a point where we can really attack the problem directly. Reduced illegal crossings, along with beefing up the border patrol, will ease the burden of policing the border. And finally, after all these years, we might really get a handle on it.

The President's plan is not a lifetime amnesty. It includes incentives to return to Mexico, and a way to return freely, without penalty. Please consider it carefully before you mischaracterize it and reject it for the wrong reasons.

President Bush has made several mistakes - don't mention CFR to me, for one - but he has a penchant for proposing actual, realistic solutions to problems instead of papering over them. I just do not believe that any other solutions I have heard of can actually be put in effect and work, and this one might.