Meant to blog this on Friday, but Rush Limbaugh delivered some tough remarks on federal spending and illegal immigration that have grass-roots conservatives buzzing. “We cannot maintain our sovereignty without securing and protecting our borders in an era where terrorists around the world seek entry to this country,” Limbaugh said in his radio monologue.

John Fund writes today about the impact Limbaugh could have in stopping the amnesty insanity proposed by the Bush administration:

Rush has 20 million listeners a week, so if he decides to attack President Bush’s plan to regularize immigration flows through a guest-worker program, he could help kill the idea…

Let’s hope so.

Fund goes on to propose a minimum number of border security-related measures he thinks are needed to mollify grass-roots conservatives appalled at Bush’s open-borders doctrine:

* funding the Border Patrol increases included in the intel reform bill
* adopting measures to combat election fraud by illegal aliens
* amending the motor voter law
* punishing cities that adopt illegal alien sanctuary policies

Fund counsels that “immigration is certainly more complex than many border-control advocates would have you believe.” Yes, well, Fund’s simplistic proposals–he breathes not a word about enforcing federal employer sanctions, toughening employee eligibility verification methods, banning matricula consular cards and other insecure identification, increasing interior enforcement, or fixing the deportation abyss–will hardly make a dent in the problem.

And President Bush’s “plan to regularize immigration flows” will make the problem exponentially worse.

A few years ago, when my first book Invasion was published, Rush generously interviewed me for the Limbaugh Letter. We discussed in-depth the need to treat immigration as a national security issue first and foremost. Rush was concerned with what’s good for America, not simply what’s good for the Republican Party.

Conservatives in the White House would do well to follow Rush’s lead.