As to your line about states not meaning anything, it shows that you are completely non-serious when you say “I believe in enforcing our laws.” Sure, you can offer a constitutional amendment, but until you do, respect for our laws requires respecting the fact that the federal government has no legal authority to enforce a national I.D. card.

I am not necessarily against such a thing. But even if I really wanted it, I don’t pretend that just because I want something, that it’s therefore OK to ignore the law to get it done.

Also, this is odd: “I don’t believe in amnesty programs, however cloaked and renamed, for crimes more major than illegal parking or failing to return library materials by their due date.” So why not amnesty for being in this country illegally? In fact, being here illegally is no more “major” than illegal parking. That’s what our law says. It’s a mere infraction, no worse than a parking ticket. That the penalty for it — deportation — seems severe is merely a matter of perspective (for our law, it is just returning someone to where they belong, not an actual punishment per se); it is not an actual indication of severity.