The United States was attacked on September 11, 2001 by nineteen illegal aliens. The foreign nationals who murdered 2,775 people in one day flouted existing immigration laws by obtaining entry documents under false pretenses and overstaying legally-issued non-immigrant visas.

By overstaying the time limits of their visas, and not disclosing either their whereabouts or the true purpose of their visits to the United States, they became removable illegal aliens under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

But now only two years after 9/11, this very same motley type of visa over-stayers, truant foreign students and lingering foreign "tourists" could be rewarded as amnesty candidates under the Bush Administration's recent illegal alien amnesty proposal the coming Robert L. Bartley Memorial Open Borders Bill.

The Bush Administration would give these illegal aliens entry documents to come and go as they please across the border, and also line them up with any "willing employer" ready to put them to work regardless of their immigration status.

So given what happened on 9/11, why is the Bush Admini-stration going in the direction of less, not more immigration law enforcement?

A group called "9/11 Families for a Secure America" (9-11 FSA) advocates the opposite route. Their path to a secure America is crystal clear.

"Families who lost loved ones on September 11th know that the federal government failed to live up to its most basic obligation to its citizens - to protect them from foreign attack.

"And we know our government failed to maintain control of our borders. The failure to keep out unauthorized aliens led directly to the 9/11 attacks and the deaths of our loved ones."

The 9-11 FSA families and supporters suggest some very specific ideas for essential immigration reform.

It won't be a shock to readers to learn that 9-11 FSA says nothing about granting more entry documents to more illegal aliens, or hiring more illegal aliens to fill more American jobs more often.

Simply put, the 9-11 FSA families understand why their loved ones never made it home.

But while 9-11 FSA patiently waits for the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission) to finish its hearings and make a final report, the Bush Administration apparently wants to jump the gun and give legal status to potentially millions of illegal aliens.

Do President Bush and "Secretario" Ridge really care to read the 9-11 Commission's report before opening our borders more than ever before or was the 9/11 Commission just some sort of charade in the first place?

Will anyone in government heed the voices of the 9/11 Families before opening the legal and illegal immigration floodgates even wider, or are the narrow interests of the Hispanic Alliance for Progress, the Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans, the Latino Coalition and LULAC just too important to the Bush Administration?

I fear that America and its 9/11 families already know the answer.