Let me get this straight:

• Attorney General John Ashcroft wants to make it easier to wiretap ordinary Americans in the fight against terrorism;

• Congress is talking about a national identification card to aid in locating terrorists;

• Reagan National Airport is still closed and may never completely reopen to protect the White House and Capitol from airborne attacks;

• Other officials are talking about the need for Americans to be understanding about compromised civil rights as we wage this war;

• President Bush has issued an executive order declaring the United States to be in a state of national emergency.

This is all very serious stuff and would seem to indicate our officials are taking whatever steps are necessary to avoid another catastrophe like those that occurred Sept. 11.

Yet, here's my problem: Why hasn't there been even one iota of discussion in Washington about our national borders – which, right now, are in such a state of abject unguardedness that they virtually serve to send would-be terrorists an open, engraved invitation to wreak havoc on us.

Talk about emergencies? That's what we have at both our southern and northern borders. Terrorists can walk or drive into this country unmolested and undetected – and they undoubtedly do on a daily basis.

Before I sign off on my constitutional rights in this battle against terrorism, I want to see the government do its part. It has a constitutional responsibility – even in peacetime, even when our buildings are not being destroyed by terrorists, even in good times – to protect our borders from foreign invasion.

And that's what we face today. In fact, the situation has been deplorable for a long time. But, you might think that Sept. 11 would have been the wakeup call we all needed to get serious about policing our borders. Apparently not.

We need a massive infusion of support for the Border Patrol, which is one of the few federal agencies way understaffed for the role it plays.

"It is extremely frustrating since we have all these laws enacted but many of them are not enforced," one Border Patrol agent told me. "Our hands are tied. If a truck or other type of vehicle crashes through the border out in the remote areas of the deserts or hills and it is loaded down with illegal aliens or drugs, we aren't even allowed to pursue it! It is a joke the way things are run in this agency, and the politics of the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) make me sick."

This is no longer an issue about whether poor, oppressed, underprivileged Mexicans should have a chance at a better life here in the United States. It is no longer an issue of how much we want to spend on turning back illegal aliens and drug dealers. It's no longer an issue of relations between the U.S. and Mexico. It's no longer even about which party is going to be more successful at seducing the Hispanic vote.

No. All of that is over and done with. Those debates ended Sept. 11 when those planes started crashing. This border issue is not just a national security issue, it is the national security issue.

It seems to me this is a first step to national security and national defense, not an optional one – not one that might come up for discussion later, not one that can wait, not one that can be studied.

This is a matter of national emergency. We cannot protect our nation from terrorists by terrorizing our own people with draconian, police-state tactics. We can, however, protect our nation by doing what the Constitution calls for, by doing what most other nations in the world do, by doing the common-sense thing – by closing and policing our borders.

How much will it cost? I don't care. It's a price that must be paid.

We don't ask how much it's going to cost to get Osama bin Laden. It's a given that we will pay any cost, bear any burden and defeat any foe to make him pay for what he did. That's good. We need to have the same resolve with regard to closing our porous borders – to prevent more bin Ladens from getting here.

Don't miss Joseph Farah's exclusive report "Jihad in America" in the November issue of Whistleblower magazine, WorldNetDaily's monthly offline publication. Order your subscription now.