Mark Reed, retired director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s Central Regional System in Dallas, responsible for more then 18 offices, recently spoke with striking candor to The Boston Globe: “The border is out of control. The number of people entering the country is staggering.” Blunt speech from a retired official. The situation, however, is much more serious than simply controlling our borders, which we are perfectly capable of doing, anytime we choose. Far more significant to our future is the distortion of our political culture resulting from our ambivalence toward illegal migration. We are replacing the rule of law, the foundation of a self-governing republic, with a new principle: compassion for individuals who are “only seeking a better life.”

In response to the clamor of ethnic activists, many journalists have now substituted the word “undocumented worker” for “illegal alien,” and in the process we are slowly taught to minimize the significance of unlawful migration. Sneaking across borders, overstaying a visa, colluding with greedy employers in taking jobs that were meant for legal immigrants and Americans, lying about your identity, and using fraudulent documents are crimes that have been effectively minimized under the explanation: “he was only trying to make a better life.” And how big is this problem of people “making a better life” in defiance of law and national borders?

An estimated 9 million to 11 million illegal immigrants are residing here on a permanent basis; 800,000 new illegal aliens are settling her each year. In 2001, 1.2 million illegal migrants were stopped at the Mexican border. It is estimated that between one in three and one in five are intercepted. And 40 percent of all illegal immigrants did not arrive by sneaking across the border, but by overstaying their visas.

And how has our government responded?: 1. Since 1982 local communities are required to provide a public education to all resident children of illegal aliens (Pyler v. Doe, 5-4 Supreme Court); 2. We are required to provide emergency health care, to cover all pregnancy and delivery costs, and long-term hospital costs if the illegal cannot pay for his care; 3. We are required to provide free interpreters to all illegals who come to American hospitals and schools; 4. We give citizenship to the children born to illegals in this country, based on an interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment which was never debated by the Supreme Court; 5. The illegal families of citizen children are never deported, and as citizens, these children are entitled to all taxpayer-funded programs. For example, illegal alien families receive Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, through their citizen children; 6. Some state governments (California, Texas, Utah, New York) are now allowing illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at public universities, and some states now allow illegal immigrants to have a state driver’s license; 7. Thirteen states, 66 banks and 801 police agencies are now accepting the “matricular,” an identification card issued by the Mexican government to help illegal Mexicans in America get better public service. The idea came from the Mexican government as a way to “regularize” illegal immigrants and move toward a de facto amnesty. The matricular has been so successful that other countries are also looking to issue these cards to their illegal citizens living in America. Our government has maintained an inexplicable silence; 8. Since l986 Congress has passed seven amnesties for illegal immigrants, allowing illegals to jump ahead of the relatives of legal immigrants who are patiently waiting to enter lawfully; 9. Beginning with the Clinton administration, the INS stopped enforcing immigration law at the work site. Illegal immigrants are rarely deported unless they commit a felony, and their employers are rarely penalized. In other words, in defiance of laws passed by elected officials at the behest of the American people, our government is deliberately choosing a policy of nonenforcement. The employers who claim that they cannot survive without cheap immigrant labor and the ethnic activists who claim that enforcing our laws against illegal immigrants is “anti-Hispanic” have carried the day.

In defense of government officials, however, our crumbling respect for the rule of law has been driven by the best of intentions. Police officials are refusing to turn over illegal immigrants to the INS because they want to cultivate a “good relationship” with immigrant communities. University administrators, who lobbied for in- state tuition for illegal aliens, wanted to extend educational opportunities to the poor. There are always compelling reasons for placing compassion and convenience above the rule of law, which in contrast, seems cold and impersonal.

Much of the misery from which people are fleeing from Third World countries was caused by pervasive corruption, the failure of democratic institutions and a widespread lack of respect for the rule of law . And when immigrants fail to assimilate our political culture, they bring their political culture to America. According to the Los Angeles Times, California has a $3 billion underground economy from which government receives no taxes. The problem was clearly attributed to immigrants who come from countries where people do not “trust” their government. In America, even when we don’t like the rules, the majority of us play by the rules our elected officials have written, and we seek to change the rules in a lawful manner.

We have a democratic process for increasing legal immigration, if that is what the people of this nation want. But neither Congress nor the White House is promoting an increase in legal immigration because the overwhelming majority of Americans want the borders controlled and immigration reduced. Instead, our government is looking for ways to “regularize” illegal immigrants through piecemeal back-door arrangements, avoiding the word “amnesty” and media attention at all costs.

The English philosopher, John Locke, whose thinking inspired the American revolution, said that society should be governed by a “social contract” under which governments have obligations to their citizens, and citizens have responsibilities to government. By deliberately choosing to blur the distinction between lawful citizen and noncitizen, our government is destroying the social contract and any pretense to legitimately representing the American people.

When Benjamin Franklin was leaving the final session of the Constitutional Convention, an irate matron from Philadelphia demanded to know, after four months of secrecy, what he and the other delegates had produced. He responded,

“A republic. If you can keep it.”

Jonette Christian of Holden, a member of Mainers for Immigration Reform, can be reached at jonette@acadia.net.