The Week

Bob Woodward isn’t saying who told him about Valerie Plame. Could it have been Bill Casey, in those last moments?

If President Bush’s recent speech on immigration enforcement meant that he now understands how dismayed conservatives are about the chaotic, lawless state of our immigration system, that is an encouraging sign. But the particulars of the speech give conservatives little to be happy about. Bush promised to end the practice of releasing detained non-Mexican illegals on their own recognizance-freeing them, in practice, to skip their deportation hearings and fade away into the countryside. But not releasing illegals is among the smallest measures that can be expected from the administration, and is nothing for the president to boast about. Meanwhile, Bush still declines to take steps that are within his power and would be far more effective in curbing illegal immigration: for instance, instructing the Social Security Administration to reject fake or stolen Social Security numbers submitted by employers on behalf of new hires, or changing the Treasury Department instructions to banks that currently permit them to accept Mexico’s illegal-alien ID card for purposes of opening accounts. Bush’s speech seemed designed, above all, to make his guest-worker program-cum-amnesty more palatable to conservatives. But his proposals inspire little confidence in those who fear a replay of 1986, when millions of illegal aliens were legalized in exchange for promises of future enforcement that came to precisely-nothing.

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Bob Woodward isn’t saying who told him about Valerie Plame. Could it have been Bill Casey, in those last moments?

If President Bush’s recent speech on immigration enforcement meant that he now understands how dismayed conservatives are about the chaotic, lawless state of our immigration system, that is an encouraging sign. But the particulars of the speech give conservatives little to be happy about. Bush promised to end the practice of releasing detained non-Mexican illegals on their own recognizance-freeing them, in practice, to skip their deportation hearings and fade away into the countryside. But not releasing illegals is among the smallest measures that can be expected from the administration, and is nothing for the president to boast about. Meanwhile, Bush still declines to take steps that are within his power and would be far more effective in curbing illegal immigration: for instance, instructing the Social Security Administration to reject fake or stolen Social Security numbers submitted by employers on behalf of new hires, or changing the Treasury Department instructions to banks that currently permit them to accept Mexico’s illegal-alien ID card for purposes of opening accounts. Bush’s speech seemed designed, above all, to make his guest-worker program-cum-amnesty more palatable to conservatives. But his proposals inspire little confidence in those who fear a replay of 1986, when millions of illegal aliens were legalized in exchange for promises of future enforcement that came to precisely-nothing.