WHAT HAPPENED TO THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE?

Bloomberg's Al Hunt reports that the Obama administration remains undecided about how quickly to address immigration reform, noting that the word "immigration" was totally absent from the president's address to Congress last week. But a story out of Utah highlights some of the social issues that are keeping immigration tensions simmering in communities across the country: The Salt Lake Tribune reports that some Utah school districts are funneling immigrant children from Mexico, Tonga, Somalia, Burma, Kenya and Burundi into "newcomer" programs, which last as long as three years and are housed separately, sometimes even in trailers outside of regular school buildings. Activists have filed civil rights complaints against the practice, which they say denies immigrants equal resources and segregates them from mainstream culture. But defenders say the newcomer classrooms are necessary in order to tailor lessons to the needs of English language learners. And there are other major educational challenges: some of the immigrant children have never attended school before, and cannot read or write even in their mother tongues. Others have come directly from refugee camps with no running water, and need to be taught basic cultural skills. It is difficult to imagine immigration being neutralized as a social or political issue without comprehensive reform; a worsening economy is likely to raise, not lower, resentments about extra resources spent on the education of undocumented immigrant children, for example. How long can Obama avoid the issue? --Dana Goldstein