Taking Minnesota Nice to an absurd extreme, the Star Tribune reporter covering the May 1 Amnesty for Aliens rally at the Capitol neglected to inform the confused participants that practical jokes in this country are played a month earlier, on April 1, so the humor involved in illegal immigrants demanding rights they don't have was likely lost on most Minnesotans.

But the reporter appeared to be playing a joke of her own by omitting the word "illegal" from her coverage and disingenuously claiming that "Minnesotans" are being deported, as though Andersons and Olsons from Rochester to Roseau are being rounded up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and shipped off to suburban Guadalajara.

That some deportations are finally taking place should serve as a reminder to those here illegally that what they thought was a one-way ticket to Minnesota might include a free return trip and that a "climate of fear" is a reasonable result of breaking into a foreign country.

Last summer, when Congress and President Bush were poised to grant amnesty to untold millions of illegal immigrants while millions more from around the world were playing by the rules and waiting their turn, Americans stood up, said no and demanded that America protect her borders and enforce existing immigration laws.

So when a few hundred illegal immigrants and their misguided supporters gather to demand amnesty and nonenforcement of U.S. immigration laws, they might get sympathetic coverage from the Star Tribune, but the response they get from most Minnesotans is this: No way, José.

MATT DREW, MINNEAPOLIS