According to the "Confidence in U.S. Foreign Policy Index" for the fall of 2007, published by Public Agenda in cooperation with Foreign Affairs (released October 24):

Illegal immigration already has the elements that might constitute a "tipping point" in public attitudes

-- a substantial majority are strongly concerned about a problem and believe the government has the power to address it. Continuing public frustration implies continuing pressure on the political system to deal with this problem as the public demands that its concerns be met.

Or translated: A growing majority of Americans is fed up with the government’s refusal to stop illegal immigration. Politicians ignore the growing pressure for a solution at their own electoral peril.

In this environment of super-sensitivity to voter attitudes on immigration by both political parties, we can be sure that immigration legislation will continue to occupy center-stage in 2008 and beyond. However, the more the pressure grows for a legislative solution to the problem of illegal immigration, the more likely that deceptively-named and –described legislation will be introduced and passed.

In the meantime, many of our government, business, and academic elites are busily working to establish the North American Union (NAU), an open borders arrangement for North America that would make the present turmoil over immigration moot. In fact, unless the NAU merger process is stopped, legislative gridlock over illegal immigration would provide the same end-state as the widely-reviled Bush-Kennedy amnesty bill of June 2007, i.e., open borders throughout North America.

If you doubt a North American Union merger of the United States, Mexico, and Canada, a la the European Union, is well underway, you need to read “Merger in the Making” (4 MB PDF), the North American Union Edition of The New American magazine for October 15, 2007.

The bottom line for anti-illegal immigration activists: Although American public opinion is rapidly coalescing around the idea that the government can and must solve the illegal immigration problem, a lasting solution must include rooting out the open borders/North American Union vision behind the government's refusal to stop illegal immigration by blocking the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) and repealing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).