The conduct of the illegal immigrants is a threat to the authority of the United States... The executive branch has answered decades of Congressional legislation with decades of defiance. The federal government now faces a test, and the United States a difficult and defining moment. Are the laws of the United States to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United States' legislative and executive branches serve the purpose of their founding, or will they be irrelevant?
---paraphrase of President Bush's address to the United Nations, 12 Sept 02
