Illustration by Cody Angell

The U.S. government began a program following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 designed to protect and promote the general well-being and welfare of the citizens who live here. Part of this program is trials of immigrants who have stayed in the United States past the limit of their visa or other conditions.

Many of these people are also suspected of aiding and abetting terrorists, or conspiring to commit terrorist acts themselves. The controversial part of these trials is that they are held in "secret," meaning that the public and the media are kept out of them. There are currently hundreds of people who are going through these trials.

This is the scenario that some would have you believe: Somewhere in the ominous, empty landscape of a Midwestern state, a secret committee meets in an underground bunker to decide the fate of an anonymous foreign citizen. Nameless judges and representatives from the government sit behind large oak desk and declare the helpless immigrants guilty of extending their stay in the United States, or worse, aiding and abetting terrorist acts within our borders. The immigrant is swept away by soldiers and deported from the country.

Some would actually have you believe this scenario. And who would they be? They would be the anti-government, anti-national security liberals. Some of these people can, shockingly, be found in the U.S. Senate.

When President Bush recently described the Senate as being "not interested in national security," many were up in arms. Bush was right in his description and should have gone one step further: There are those in our government who would literally leave us defenseless against future attacks. People who would place small civil rights issues of foreign citizens above the public safety of Americans don't even deserve to serve in our government.

The reality is that private (not secret) trials of foreign citizens are vital to our national security.

The world has changed since Sept. 11, 2001. Anyone who thinks that this country is not at war is fooling themselves in a very dangerous way. We are at war, but a different kind of war. While we are fighting a foreign enemy (Afghanistan and, hopefully soon, Iraq) we are challenged with a domestic threat that has never been seen before.

The enemy we are fighting at home uses everything we love against us. They use our freedoms of transportation, communications and civil rights to destroy us. They rely on the fact that our own ridiculous rules will prevent us from detecting and deterring them from committing future terrorist acts. They rely on public trials that will give them a forum to spread their messages of hate, or worse, to convey coded messages to other terrorist operatives in the United States.

The hundreds of people who are being held in the new "secret" trial program are receiving a fair trial. It's important to remember that every single one of them has already committed a crime. They are people who have overstayed their welcome in the United States. They are people who have been here ten years on a "student" visa or twenty years on a "visiting family" visa. This is a perfect example of how the new threat we face at home is using our system against us.

Because people in the United States feel the need to educate the world, we let foreign students in by the thousands. Yet no one is making sure that they actually attend school or leave when they graduate. This is exactly how the terrorists of Sept. 11 infiltrated our country. The obvious solution to this problem is to fund the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in a serious way that will allow them to do their job.

Despite all of the things that the United States must do to prevent terrorists from entering the country, the fact remains that many will succeed in entering the country, and there are probably already thousands here. Trials that are kept from public view are necessary to protect the public.

Recently, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed. The Chief Judge of the court said it best in his ruling when he wrote, "Even minor pieces of evidence that might appear innocuous to us would provide valuable clues to a person within the terrorist network." It's a shame that more people don't see the issue this way.

If we don't stand up and defend ourselves, no one else will. If we don't strengthen our national security and root out the terrorists living among us, we are inviting another attack.