Charles Krauthammer really hits the nail on the head in his column today in The Washington Post:

First a Wall -- Then Amnesty

Every sensible immigration policy has two objectives: (1) to regain control of our borders so that it is we who decide who enters and (2) to find a way to normalize and legalize the situation of the 11 million illegals among us.

Start with the second. No one of good will wants to see these 11 million suffer. But the obvious problem is that legalization creates an enormous incentive for new illegals to come.

We say, of course, that this will be the very last, very final, never-again, we're-not-kidding-this-time amnesty. The problem is that we say exactly the same thing with every new reform. And everyone knows it's phony.

....

If the government can demonstrate that it can control future immigration, there will be infinitely less resistance to dealing generously with the residual population of past immigration. And, as Mickey Kaus and others have suggested, that may require that the two provisions be sequenced. First, radical border control by physical means. Then, shortly thereafter, radical legalization of those already here. To achieve national consensus on legalization, we will need a short lag time between the two provisions, perhaps a year or two, to demonstrate to the skeptics that the current wave of illegals is indeed the last.

That's essentially been our position --

So what needs to be done? Job one is border enforcement. Right now, anyone can come across - farm workers, day laborers, drug smugglers, gang members, terrorists - anyone. We need to know who’s coming in to stop criminals from coming in. There’s no such thing as a border that’s open for laborers, but closed to terrorists and criminals. The border is either secure or it’s not. Right now it’s obviously not. Enforcement must come first.

Discussions about particular levels of legal immigration, or a guest worker program, can almost be considered secondary issues. Enforcement must come first.

-- enforce the border first, establish that the inflow has been curtailed, then deal with those already here. As any plumber might tell us -- first stop the leak, then worry about mopping up.

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