Remember the media focus last year when the U.S. Senate debated another amnesty for illegal aliens and illegal employers - and was dissuaded by hundreds of thousands of phone calls, faxes and e-mails from outraged Americans screaming "NO MORE AMNESTY!"?

Of course you do. We all do.

Neither are many Americans likely to forget the fact that the media and the two most well-funded presidential candidates are virtually ignoring the border security/ immigration crisis this year. With an elephant in the parlor, the conversation seems to be about the wallpaper.

Using border security, legalization and immigration as campaign topics does not produce unquestioning, pliable, voters.

But not everyone is ignoring the matter.

Led by a tax-exempt organization that receives taxpayer funding, and whose name in English is "the National Council of the Race," the usual suspects for open borders have put up a pro-amnesty attack Web site called "We Can Stop the Hate."

With the typically heavy-handed and convoluted mindlessness of the far left, the goal is to smear anyone who led the American people's successful effort to stop another amnesty last year. All of whom are of course portrayed as bigoted "haters."

The hope is when the next amnesty bill oozes up in Washington, the most effective messengers for sovereignty, security and enthusiastic immigration law enforcement will have been marginalized enough to be

disregarded.

The name on the Web site could easily have been "We Can Stop the Debate."

No one can go far wrong in describing the amnesty-again coalition as that of the radical far-left and the Chamber of Commerce.

Which brings us to the "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" activist-recruiting seminar being held in the Atlanta area today by an organization of business interests calling itself "Immigration Works USA."

Today, of course, is the seventh anniversary of the horror of Sept. 11, 2001.

Something else Americans are not missing: our borders remain unsecured - and it's all about the money.

Sponsored by an assortment of business interests like the American Hotel and Lodging Association, the American Nursery and Landscape Association, the National Association of Homebuilders and, yes, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the stated goals of the organization are crystal clear: "To educate the public about the benefits of immigration and build a mainstream grassroots constituency in favor of an overhaul - business owners and others from across America willing to speak out and demand that it gets done."

This organization could have been named "Taxpayer Subsidized Labor Works for Us."

Understand that regardless of its colossal funding - and political connections that run all the way to the White House - amnesty was defeated last year by the united voice of the American people who know that "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" and an "overhaul" of our immigration laws really means legalization, increased immigration, more workers and lower wages.

You can't envy the job of convincing the public that we need more "willing workers" when the each day's headlines bring more and worse news about record levels of unemployment and government budget cuts for Americans.

It is vital that we all realize that the American elite will never stop trying to open American borders to the free flow of labor.

On controlling immigration and protecting American labor, the founder of the American Federation of Labor, Samuel Gompers, said it very well in 1924: "Every effort to enact immigration legislation must expect to meet a number of hostile forces and, in particular, two hostile forces of considerable strength. One of these is composed of corporation employers who desire to employ physical strength at the lowest possible wage and who prefer a rapidly revolving labor supply at low wages to a regular supply of American wage earners at fair wages. The other is composed of racial groups in the United States who oppose all restrictive legislation because they want the doors left open for an influx of their countrymen regardless of the menace to the people of their adopted country."

With our nation taking in more legal immigration than any other nation in the world - an unreasonable and unsustainable million-plus legal immigrants per year - Americans watching the current presidential campaign should not allow candidates to ignore the border security crisis - or the immigration issue, legal or illegal.

Another thing to remember: On amnesty, the open borders lobby only needs to win once. The American people must prevail in every battle.

D.A. King is president of the Cobb-based Dustin Inman Society, which is opposed to open borders