This week, President Obama -- who has already declared that he is running for re-election -- kicked off his 2012 Latino outreach effort by traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border at El Paso, Texas, and delivering a speech on immigration.

This wasn't easy. Finding the border can be tricky when it is your first visit in the 26 months since becoming president.

Besides, immigration isn't Obama's favorite topic. You remember that subject in high school that you hated, because, well, you had no interest in it and so you weren't good at it?

For Barack Obama, that subject is immigration. He's terrible at it. He doesn't seem to understand it. And he doesn't appear to care about it. So he settles for using it as a political tool.

There is a sizable community of immigrants -- legal and illegal -- in Illinois. Yet, during his stint in the state Senate, Obama demonstrated little interest in the issue and proposed no bills specifically aimed at immigrants.

When Obama ascended to the U.S. Senate, he voted for a so-called "poison pill" amendment to a comprehensive immigration reform bill that would "sunset" a proposed guest worker program after five years. All of this was to please organized labor, but it doomed the compromise.

LINK :
http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/05/1...rss_topstories