As our country's population approaches 300 million, it is worthwhile for the American people to examine our immigration policies, and their effects.

The population of the United States has doubled since 1950. Today, most of our population growth is due to immigration. In 2000 the US Census Bureau published a report that projected future trends in population growth. Under the zero immigration scenarios, the US population would slowly increase throughout the century and reach 377 million by 2100. The report also pointed out that a high immigration and fertility scenario would bring the population to well over 1 billion. So it is clear that the choices we make in our immigration policy today will have an enormous impact on how many people will be living here in the years to come. With a high growth rate it could very well be that "tomorrow is another country." The America of our great-grandparents was about the size of Germany. The America of our descendants could become as crowded as India, if that is the future we choose.

Each year millions of people worldwide immigrate from one country to another in search of a new or better life. The U.S. is not the only country receiving immigrants. Canada, Australia, France and many other prosperous countries have welcomed immigrants to enjoy the fruits of a first-world economy. The U.S. is in competition with other countries to attract prospective immigrants, especially foreign entrepreneurs and skilled workers. Each year about 1 million people immigrate to the US legally each year. But incredibly, at least another million cross our borders illegally. Members of the U. S. Senate want to reward the illegals with eventual citizenship just as if they had been legal.

The immigration process is roughly analogous to the way colleges and universities woo prospective students to fill the next year's freshman class. There are slots available, and people apply for them. If their application is accepted, they can begin a new life in their new country. And after a set period of time, they can apply for full citizenship (the right to vote and hold a passport), much the same way that a college student prepares for the day when he or she earns a college diploma.

If we compare immigration to college admissions, we can begin to see the lunacy that illegal immigration represents. Imagine this scenario. A person applies to Harvard, but doesn't get in. No problem. He decides to simply move to Cambridge, Mass. anyway and attend lectures at Harvard surreptitiously. He finds the lecture halls are big enough so that the professor won't notice an extra soul sitting in the back of the class busy taking notes. Over the course of four years, he attends every class, does all the homework (but doesn't turn it in to give himself away), and as he hangs around campus he looks like he fits in because he's just another 20-year-old. He looks the part of a genuine Harvard student.

Four years later, he marches into the administrative offices and demands a Harvard diploma! He contends that he has never missed a class, has completed all the homework and take-home exams, even if he is officially "undocumented". He even says he has done the work that the real Harvard students won't do. Even at such a liberal bastion as Harvard, would anyone expect his request to be entertained? What would it mean for the people who paid $100,000 tuition when they hear that another student got a diploma through some "amnesty" plan?

And yet this is what we are doing to America. We are the greatest country in the world, the Ivy League among nations. But to give amnesty to illegals is a slap in the face to the rest of us who uphold the law.

Kyle Rogers has a BS in Computer Engineering and is a member of the National Board of Directors for the Council of Conservative Citizens [www.cofcc.org].