It’s easy to tell another election is around the corner. Politicians are once again using immigration reform as a political football.
It doesn’t really matter what the politicians say. It’s their actions, or in the case of immigration reform, their non-actions that speak louder than their words. Senator John McCain has been heard to say he won’t give up the issue in 2014. He insists that the government must act, but that is an easy thing to say going into a year where most of politicians’ time will be spent on the campaign trail, bashing the opposition and dragging immigration reform through the mud – yet again.
Realistically, what are the chances that immigration reform gets passed before the House lets out and everyone heads back to the hustings? If you ask representatives of immigration reform organizations and groups, the answer is, “slim to none.” There has been so much action, figuratively speaking, that it’s resulted in inaction, which seems to have been the main goal in the first place. No one appears genuinely to want to pass immigration reform. It makes a good flash point to garner votes. And thus the cycle continues, over and over and over again.
Most everyone agrees that we need immigration reform. People work toward that. Items get passed in the House. Politicians get cold feet and see their votes going south. Stalling starts. Immigration reform gets put on hold. Many Americans hold no hope of it passing. Many immigrants—the ones who were lured into voting for Obama—despair they will see reform in their lifetime, or the lifetimes of their children.
Immigration reform has become a political game affecting millions of people. This is not the right way to run a country. Nor is it the right way to treat people who have placed their faith in changes coming from the top. That old saying that, “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” is bitterly true when it comes to immigration reform. The more the political landscape evolves from one set of speeches to another, from one stance to another, the more immigration reform languishes.
One wonders where politicians’ integrity goes when it comes to living up to their promises.
