In a 2000 interview on ABC's "This Week," then Mexican President-elect Vicente Fox hopefully predicted that by 2010 people would move freely across the border between Mexico and the United States.

Most Americans will likely regard that idea as change we can live without. Change that is, at a minimum, extreme.

Extreme or not, it is not unrealistic to accept that El Presidente Fox is well on his way to getting his wish. More than 10 percent of Mexican-born people now live in "El Norte." According to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) - even after the horror of 9/11- in 2002 about 10,000 people per day crossed into the United States in violation of American laws.

The illicit "migration" has slowed very little, and if not devotedly guarded against, will increase when there are more American jobs to illegally give to people looking for a better life than they could ever expect in the Third World.

The American worker be damned.

The most optimistic estimates tell us that about half a million illegal border-crossers are able to avoid apprehension each year. Most are escaping the misery and poverty of Mexico. It would be far too easy to ignore the fact that the strongest nation on the planet ignores its own immigration laws and that the official estimates are likely low.

Easier still to lay back and believe the drivel that we lack the ability to stop anyone from breaking into our country.

Or that doing so as the world's leading nation in legal immigration is somehow "xenophobic."

Or the way to virtually eliminate the crime of illegal immigration would be to allow the free flow of people as if we were a continent-wide Wal-Mart.

American sovereignty be damned.

Most Americans are not aware of the widely - but quietly - supported open-borders agenda. But it is out there.

After Fox and George W. Bush were sworn in, the Atlanta newspapers ran an editorial accurately noting that "though neither Fox nor President Bush expects to dissolve the 2,000-mile border overnight, the Mexican leader clearly prefers sooner rather than later."

Along with other pre-9/11 American editorial pages - including the Wall Street Journal's - the Atlanta newspapers went on to accurately announce that "Mexican President Vicente Fox envisions a North American economic alliance that will make the border between the United States and Mexico as unrestricted as the one between Tennessee and Georgia." And it then endorsed the concept by recommending that "the ultimate goal of any White House policy ought to be a North American economic and political alliance similar in scope and ambition to the European Union."

Fox is "El Presidente" no more and George W. Bush failed in his repeated attempts to legalize the illegal aliens who escaped American Border Patrol Agents.

Nobody has given up on the concept of expanding NAFTA to include officially open borders and the free flow of labor (i.e., people) to match the flow of goods and services. But the horror of the 11th day of September, 2001 forced those open borders advocates to go underground - aided and assisted with the near total lack of scrutiny and coverage by the media.

On "migration," we should all be asking how large a population we want - or can support - in the United States and remember that under the current interpretation of our Constitution, most people born on our soil are awarded the title, rights and benefits of "American citizen."

On Tuesday, former Mexican President Fox will advance his latest "new vision for North American Prosperity" at an event, partially open to the public, at Kennesaw State University.

Given his extremist record, it should not be difficult to read between what ever lines he may offer.

We should be grateful to KSU for the opportunity to hear his ideas, however softened or obfuscated for possible acceptance.

Questions should be asked. Both by average Americans and their elected leaders sworn to defend and preserve the United States Constitution.

Will we wave the flag of surrender and convert the Republic into merely a more efficient marketplace, or continue the struggle to pass on the nation of laws and defined, defended borders and a common language with which we have been entrusted?

While we are asking questions of Mr. Fox, we may want to remind him that Mexico ferociously defends its own borders.

Si?

D.A. King of east Cobb is a widely recognized authority on illegal immigration and president of the Cobb-based Dustin Inman Society, (http://www.TheDustinInmanSociety.org)