Let's hope seven days is enough for the government to perform a thorough intelligence-based investigation of a million Muslim immigrants!

Oddly, it would be easier to deport immigrants than to detain them. Under the Constitution, visitors to this country have no right to be here, but they may have a right not to be detained indefinitely without a hearing.

War is being waged on our soil by noncitizen infiltrators, legally admitted by the INS. If Congress says the attorney general can't detain them, we ought to deport them. (From the "not ready to move on" file: Isn't it curious that we have room for 19 Muslim mass murderers, but no room for an innocent little Cuban boy? In addition to deporting immigrants from terrorist-producing countries, someone should look into deporting every person who ever worked for the INS.)

Any senator (Teddy Kennedy) who is opposed to the mass deportation of immigrants from suspect countries would be free to waive in as many potential terrorists as he could sign his name to. At least then we'd have true government accountability, rather than collective foot-dragging based on pristine tributes to civil rights.

We won't even necessarily need to call on the fine-tuned screening procedures of the INS. The law could simply state that immigrants from certain countries aren't allowed to be here after a certain date, unless they receive a waiver.

Admittedly, fanatics willing to launch monstrous suicide missions are probably also going to be willing to violate a general order of deportation. But it would raise the terrorists' transactions costs. At the very least, noncitizen terrorists will have a tough time maneuvering around the country, becoming pilots, getting hazardous materials licenses and generally doing the things they need to do to nuke Manhattan.

Surely, thousands of immigrants could be waived in instantly on the basis of reliable evidence either that they are not Muslims, or that they are the peaceful, law-abiding variety not planning mass murder -- as opposed to the peaceful, law-abiding Muslims who recently slaughtered thousands of our fellow countrymen.

Among the advantages of a deportation presumption is that it would give the FBI increased opportunities to flip Muslim immigrants to informants -- a possibility unlikely to be lost on any terrorists looking for their own new recruits.

A mass deportation order also ought to ease the way for "ethnic profiling." If noncitizens from various suspect countries were under an order to leave, all security personnel would have grounds to look for potential violators of that law.

Everyone is profiling now anyway. No one talks about it, which allows liberals the luxury of ritualistically denouncing racial profiling. Ordinary Americans aren't going to die for political correctness. And airlines aren't going to fly empty planes. Continued...