If the government cannot control the documents it issues, what is the point of issuing more documents, such as a national identity card?

Last week U.S. Attorney William S. Duffey Jr. announced the arrest and indictment of Social Security Administration employees in Atlanta, Georgia, for selling Social Security numbers to illegal aliens. The U.S. Attorney's office described the scheme as a large and lucrative business run by the 28 defendants.

A Social Security number is an important identification document. A person with a Social Security number can easily create an American existence for himself. If an illegal alien can buy a number for work purposes, a terrorist can purchase a number for his purpose.

If a Social Security number can be purchased in Fulton County, Georgia, numbers can likely be bought in other locales as well. If Social Security numbers can be purchased, so also can other identification documents. It recently came to light that a U.S. consular office was selling visas to Muslims.

The U.S. government is very relaxed about illegal aliens. Little is done to protect our borders or to find illegals and deport them. As the INS does not perform its tasks, why does it exist?

The failure of the INS to protect the U.S. against entry and presence of illegal immigrants endangers the integrity of government. Prior to the presence of millions of illegals in our country, there was no illicit demand for Social Security numbers and, thus, no temptation to corruption of Social Security employees.

Face it, there is the huge and overlooked cost of illegal immigration—the corruption of government agencies with power to issue important documents.

Last August I reported in a column that in its annual report to Congress the U.S. Office of Personnel Management bragged that "preferred minorities" were vastly over-represented in federal employment.

As almost all immigrants into the U.S., both legal and illegal, are classified as "preferred minorities," recent immigrants will be over-represented in federal employment.

The U.S. no longer draws its immigrant population from England and Europe, where behavior in accord with the rule of law is second nature to the people. For three decades the U.S. has been drawing its immigrants from Third World countries where an office in government is understood by all as a license to collect bribes.

The U.S. cannot import tens of millions of Third World peoples, forsake assimilation, celebrate multiculturalism, and avoid Third World mores. Once the U.S. has Third World immigrants as prosecutors and police, criminals will be able to purchase their freedom with bribes. Punishment will fall on those who can't meet the price of a bribe.

There is no rational basis for U.S. immigration policy. What drives U.S. immigration policy is the soppy assumption that environment determines behavior. Soppy-minded immigration enthusiasts actually believe that the mere act of crossing our frontier turns the immigrant into an American and infuses the immigrant with American beliefs and habits. The immigrant becomes a law-abiding person in spite of everything his life has taught him to that point.

When Greek and Latin were taught in our schools, Americans understood the challenge of immigration. It was clear to all that Rome under the Germans was different from Rome ruled by Romans.

Today English itself is falling by the wayside as multiculturalists brand it a "racist" language and stress teaching immigrants their own language and culture.

If our language and culture are not passed on to immigrants, where will they learn to value integrity in government and the rule of law?

People are different. Cultures are different. If multiculturalism snuffs out assimilation, America will be the next to go.

Paul Craig Roberts is the author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow's Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.

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