Pittsburgh Tribune-Review - May 29, 2008

My son-in-law, a lifelong Democrat, asked me what our government is doing about identifying illegal aliens in our nation. Despite the issue being a hot button, I told him that all of us should demand that we have a national ID card.

Could his question and that of a growing number of Democrats be the start of a great awakening among Democrats? Historically, the majority of Democrats have been loath to favor a reliable ID card. However, I ardently wish we could get the attention of all members of Congress, especially the three members running for president, on pushing this issue.

One of the critical issues in the immigration reform debate remains how we are going to solve this immigration invasion if we can't count accurately who is here. We must have a sound method of establishing properly the identity of those in this country who are entitled to be called U.S. citizens or legal aliens.

Sadly, our leaders don't want to "get it" because that would eliminate the ability of many of our businesses and the ideo- and ethno-centric lobbies to argue for and achieve the continuing importation of millions of slaves, against the will of the vast majority of Americans, who see and scream that their country is being given away.

As the rate of births of anchor babies born to those 12 million or more illegal aliens here now grows far more rapidly than the rest of babies born here, we are going to get to the point where benefits, services and, of critical importance, the privilege of voting will soon be so botched by bad data and mismanagement by our federal government that the voting frauds and failures of the past will seem minor.

Like the angry passport renewer, the vast majority of people in the U.S. now could readily be verified, stratified and completely identified as bona fide. Why not have a national campaign to immunize us against this continuing escalation of fraud?

Hey, people lined up happily to receive Jonas Salk's polio shots. Wouldn't most of us be happy to be identified conclusively as American citizens? Aren't we proud to be Americans? What's the problem? Furthermore, with a good ID, our government could issue bio ID cards that could put us through airports faster! We have the technology now.

Regardless of your political affiliation, you and I know who has failed us for decades for reasons of greed, ideology, and/or plain lack of backbone. And it looks like it will continue, as we have no good choices for president on this ID issue.

Donald A. Collins [email him], is a freelance writer living in Washington DC and a former long time member of the board of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. His views are his own.