Even before the US economic crisis pushed all other issues out of the recent Presidential election, an issue that many thought would be a dominant one mysteriously dropped out of the public dialogue: illegal immigration and border control. Not only is that curious but dangerous as well. Most of the Democratic leaders who will try to shape US policy over the next four years have stated their preference for the sort of “comprehensive” immigration reform that a massive popular action defeated in the Senate last year. During the primaries, candidate Barack Obama charged the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement with “terrorizing” people when they crack down on illegal immigrants. The subsequent silence about this during the campaign, has given Obama and his allies a sense of entitlement to affect their agenda even though it is at odds with the sentiments of most Americans. In an August 2008 Rasmussen poll, 69 percent of Americans said that border enforcement is more important than legalizing aliens and only 14 percent thought the government is doing enough to secure the borders. The survey also showed that 56 percent of Americans favor an enforcement-only approach to immigration reform with no path to citizenship for illegal aliens.