The world’s most infamous terrorist, Osama Bin Laden, seems more determined than ever to kill Americans.

In a recent message intercepted by the CIA, he ordered one of his staunchest followers, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, to send al-Qaeda operatives to launch terrorist attacks on American soil. Without a doubt, Zarqawi, responsible for numerous beheadings in Iraq, will try to carry out Bin Laden’s orders.

This fact raises a key question: How will the next group of terrorists attempt to enter this country to carry out a massive carnage like 9/11?

CIA chief Porter Goss seems to know. He warned Congress last month that al-Qaeda operatives would probably sneak into the United States through the Mexican border. Goss’ remarks sounded an alarm for many Americans that immigration reform can no longer wait.

The problem of mass illegal immigration across our borders jeopardizes not only our homeland security. It affects also jobs and wages, education and health care. For example, according the Wall Street investment firm Bear Stearns, between 4 and 6 million jobs in the United States shifted over the past 15 years to an underground economy due to illegal immigration. That’s far more than the number of jobs outsourced to workers in other countries. Furthermore, few Americans appreciate billions of dollars taken out of their paychecks to provide social services to low-wage immigrants.

Many think enough is enough. For this reason, the members of the Federation for American Immigration Reform will march on Washington next month to pressure Congress to get tough on immigration. The event, called “Hold Their Feet to the Fire,” will try to convince the Congress to enact the following reforms:

" Impose a national moratorium on all permanent immigration other than spouses and minor children of United States citizens.

" Adopt national population objectives and set immigration levels consistent with those goals.

" End family chain migration.

" Reduce overall levels of permanent legal immigration to 300,000 or less.

" Permanently bar Social Security eligibility for retirement or disability benefits based on any quarter worked illegally in the United States by illegal aliens.

" And no form of legal status whatsoever for the 10 million-plus illegal aliens now living in the United States

I agree with Fair that our immigration policy needs serious reform. Yet I disagree with the way they want to do it.  There’s a better way to solve this problem and I think President Bush has found it. 

In his State of the Union address, the President outlined his vision of immigration reform with this insightful statement:

“America’s immigration system is also outdated — unsuited to the needs of our economy and to the values of our country. We should not be content with laws that punish hard-working people who want only to provide for their families, and deny businesses willing workers, and invite chaos at our border. It is time for an immigration policy that permits temporary guest workers to fill jobs Americans will not take, that rejects amnesty, that tells us who is entering and leaving our country, and that closes the border to drug dealers and terrorists.”

I support the president’s guest worker program as a viable and ethical solution to reform immigration. Here’s why: First, when the president says, “We should not be content with laws that punish hard-working people who want to only to provide for their families,” he recognizes the moral principle of the right to immigrate to meet basic human needs.

The social teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms that “the more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin.”

Yet the president’s proposal doesn’t ask us to practice social charity at the expense of our national security. His immigration reform program would link efforts to control the borders to agreements with countries whose nationals participate in the program. The president believes any immigration reform must support ongoing efforts to enhance homeland security.

Above all, I back the president’s proposal because it combats the immorality of illegal immigration. We all know that illegal immigration creates a working underclass vulnerable to all types of exploitation. Undocumented workers often risk their lives in dangerous and illegal border crossings. They live in the shadows of American society.

The president’s guest worker program would promote compassion, as he calls it, by granting currently working undocumented workers a temporary worker status to prevent exploitation. These workers would receive a temporary worker card that will allow them to travel back and forth between their home and the United States without fear of being denied re-entry into this country. Fighting the evils of illegal immigration this way puts respect for human life first. Undocumented workers are human beings.

The consequence of granting undocumented workers a temporary worker status would not only prevent exploitation. It would also eliminate the clandestine economy generated by illegal immigration. The president’s proposal benefits our nation’s economy by matching a willing worker with a willing employer. With this initiative, everyone stands to gain.

On the other hand, if we don’t muster the moral courage and political will to reform immigration the right way, we will all lose.

Father Andrew McNair

is a theology professor at

Mater Ecclesiae College

in Greenville, R.I.