U.S. Senators Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia deserve some credit for striving to make a terrible immigration proposal crafted by Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., better. It is better than Senate legislation that stalled last year. Unfortunately for these lawmakers, the lesser of two evils is still evil.

Isakson’s border security-first “triggers,” rejected last year, attempt to require that border security measures be operative before other provisions are triggered, such as importing 200,000 new low-skilled foreign workers and issuing limitless and renewable Z visas to some 20 million Third World immigrants here illegally. Yet, if you read the fine print in the current Senate proposal, those triggers can be overridden.

Section 1(a) allows provisional Z visas to be issued immediately after enactment and Section 601(f)(2) bars the government from waiting more than 180 days after enactment to begin issuing Z visas. As Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., laments, “A few senators and the administration have crafted a large-scale, get-out-of-jail free pass.” And Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, warns “if you reward illegality, you get more of it.”

Desperate for a bipartisan “immigration reform” legacy, President George W. Bush – in an Orwellian twist in his May 29 Georgia speech – says opponents “don’t want to do what’s right for America.” Just the opposite is true. Opponents are sounding a Paul Revere-like warning that the sweeping amnesty, along with importing more low-skilled foreign workers and spouses, will cripple law enforcement and undermine the rule of law. Columnist George Will points out we will “import poverty,” and thus fuel a new underclass with the potential to expand indefinitely.

Consider the bill’s worst provisions: