One wonders what they are imbibing in that U.S. Senate cloakroom where Senators Kennedy, McCain, Kyl, Graham, Martinez, Salazar, Specter and Feinstein meet twice daily to strategize their immigration legislation. Apparently, they think some 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants will line up, sombreros-in-hand, to each pay a $5,000 fine, process for some kind of yet-to-be-invented super-ID card, then line up again on the Mexican side so they can step back over our border and be admitted into the U.S as part of a guest-worker program. Wrong.

Then, there are those who think federal agents can deport some 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants and tell them to get in line behind millions of applicants for legal immigration who have been impatiently waiting to come here and work. Wrong.

The problem is that previous federal governments, both Democrat and Republican, failed to control our borders and failed to enforce the immigration laws already on the books -- except with regard to those who dutifully applied for legal immigration. As a result, we really don’t know who is here. But, just to be conservative, let’s assume the low estimate of 12 million illegal immigrants is correct.

That being the case, by the time the Kennedy-McCain legislation could be implemented; a profound demographic shift will have already taken place. The shift will stem from the operation of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the first sentence of which reads, “1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they are born.”

Let’s further assume that 12 million number includes just three million females who give birth within the next year. That’s an additional three million 14th Amendment U.S. citizens, all the progeny of someone who violated U.S. law to get here.

The illegal-immigrant mothers, of course, must remain here to care for their U.S. citizen-babies. We are good people so we allow the father and any siblings to remain or, if not here already, to enter the U.S. to be with the U.S. citizen-baby and its mother. Add the mothers and the fathers to the 14th Amendment babies and the “legacy” number rises to five million. If the actual number of current illegal immigrants is closer to 20 million, the demographic impact is far more dramatic.

Lawyers could argue that an illegal immigrant mother and her unborn child are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. at the time of birth. The case, however, would take years to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. The 14th Amendment can be amended; however, ratification would take about a decade. In other words, it’s too late.

Those who want to maintain a white majority in America should understand that human reproduction is just a matter of “unskilled labor in the middle of the night,” and get busy. The fashion among liberal whites is to have fewer children via contraception, abortion, gay-marriage and even anti-menstrual-period pills. Demographers say conservative families tend to be larger. So, there is motivation on the part of liberal political strategists to import (or let stay) more people who will vote Democrat.

So, if the Kennedy-McCain fantasy won’t work and federal agents can’t deport 12 to 20 million kicking and screaming illegal immigrants, what could happen?

First, the only thing left for a sovereign nation to do is reestablish its sovereignty by getting iron-clad control over its borders. Second, sovereign nations find out who is inside their borders.

With those two actions completed, it would then be time to figure out who is supposed to be here and who isn’t. The next step would be to determine the conditions under which those who entered the Unite States illegally could correct for their illegal actions and get on the path toward legal status. The Kennedy-McCain legislation has the cart before the burro.

About the Author: Syndicated columnist and featured commentator for USA Today, William Hamilton, is a Distinguished Graduate of the U.S. Naval War College and a former research fellow at the U.S. Military History Institute of the U.S. Army War College. Writing as William Penn, he, and his wife, are the co-authors of The Grand Conspiracy and The Panama Conspiracy – two thrillers about terrorism directed against the United States. ©2007. William Hamilton.