Presidential hopeful Barack Obama posted a short Op-Ed piece in today's Charlotte Observer on immigration, advocating tough borders for us, and tough love for them -- the 12 million undocumented. It's a document designed to please both "sides" of the immigration "debate" -- as if the issue can be defined simply in pro or con terms -- but it turns out to be disturbingly uninformed or cynical; I'm not sure which.

Obama breaks it down into two parts. First, seal the border (he voted for the fence) and shut down the jobs magnet by locking every employer into a "mandatory electronic system" to verify the status of all new hires. Surely Obama’s team has read the reports from security and computer experts demonstrating that EEV (employment eligibility verification) is not scalable for an economy as large and dynamic as ours, and is really "Franz Kafka's solution to illegal immigration." Still, we put a man on the moon, so we should be able to take control of our hiring halls with swipe cards and RFID chips.

Second, Obama says the undeportable 12 million should be punished and sent to "the back of the line" to wait for green cards and citizenship behind those who applied legally. Again, he and his team are well aware that for most of the 12 million, there is simply no line at all in which to stand, given the antiquated quotas and categories hobbling our immigration statute. Still, it sound like the right thing to say... if it weren't coming from an African American for whom the phrase "back of the line" should sound too uncomfortably close to the "back of the bus."

As I've argued before, trying to "secure the borders" first is putting things backwards, but it seems no candidate is willing to tell the American public the facts of life until after safely in office.  Senator Obama has a stellar Immigration Policy Group at the ready; if only he would check with them before posting any more editorials on the subject.

Dan Kowalski, online editor of Bender's Immigration Bulletin – Daily Edition, www.bibdaily.com, has been practicing immigration law since 1985 in large firms, small firms and solo practice, and has been editing immigration publications for Matthew Bender / LexisNexis since 1996. Kowalski was an IJJ Border Justice Fellow for 2003-2004.