Obama and Romney stopped talking about immigration until the Democrats dropped the Dream Bomb

(Of course, if you are one of those children, especially those who bravely spoke out on their own behalf, it’s not so little.) 

So Obama and Napolitano’s Dream bomb seems dangerously close to a bamboozle.  And the Republicans and candidate Romney?  To date both seem more intent on keeping low profiles, watching the political polls, and hoping the Democrats have nothing else up their sneaky immigration sleeves.

But immigration reform, whatever your take on it, deserves more than to be a beach ball at the presidential summer shore.  Wouldn’t it be better if voters could make their decisions at the ballot box based upon each party setting forth a full agenda of its solutions to this national problem, rather than forcing states to march to the Supreme Court?  How about, for starters, both candidates spelling out their views and solutions to illegal immigrant paths to citizenship, the broken H-2A and H-2B visa programs, ICE’s deportation of 400,000 illegal aliens per year, the national security performance of DHS and all its other sister agencies in regards to immigration issues, the impact of our defense contractors upon the status of national security and immigration issues, and the viability of a national labor management program.

And for a final clue that the meaty clue that all is far from right with our immigration system? In June 2012, the Inspector General of DHS once again documented CBP’s  negligent planning and foresight.  This time it is the cruel fact that CBP cannot keep its new fleet of border drones in the air because it did not budget the necessary money “…needed to supports its current unmanned aircraft inventory” (Mickey McCarter, “CBP Missing Equipment, Plans to Support Predator UAV Flights, IG Warns”, Homeland Security Today, 12 June 2012).  So even though drone technology was proven to be very effective in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Predator Ones — at $17 million per vehicle — cannot protect us from the drug cartels and human traffickers if their tires remain affixed to the tarmac.

Our failed immigration policy, vintage IRCA 1986, will not go away even though both political parties continue to view it as a no-win issue.  The recent Democrats Dream Bomb appears an obvious attempt by Obama administration finally, after three and one-half years, to shore up its base even as the Republicans appear nearly tongue-tied. 

The ultimate political, social, and economic impact of ignoring immigration policy, the same issues ignored by the Democrats and the Republicans in 2008, is that the problems are bound to get worse, not better.  And, therefore, when either party finally decides it is at last politically expedient to act, the issues are much more difficult to resolve.

Democracy is a messy form of government and certainly few other topics are as messy and convoluted as immigration policy in our country.  But messy or not, both political parties are wrong either to continue to bamboozle or silence a broad public discussion of this vital national issue.

Robert Lee Maril, a professor of Sociology at East Carolina University and founding director of the Center for Diversity and Inequality Research, is the author of The Fence: National Security, Public Safety, and Illegal Immigration along the U.S.-Mexico Border. He blogs at leemaril.com.