It is a political minefield so dangerous that no one dares to lead us through it. The presidential candidates dance around it as if we don't notice, but both Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain clearly are avoiding one of the most important and controversial issues in the minds of most Americans.

What are they really going to do about illegal immigration? Does anybody know?

Regardless of which side of the immigration debate you stand on, you probably can think of two dozen questions these candidates haven't answered.

How do they intend to deal with the 12 million illegal immigrants who are living among us? Regardless of whether you favor deportation or compassion and whether you call that amnesty or legalization, none of us has any idea exactly when or how Obama or McCain expects to do any of this.

From both camps, all we get are immigration talking points, and they simply aren't saying enough.

When they spoke to national Hispanic organizations recently, Obama said he would make comprehensive immigration reform a top priority, and McCain said Latinos should just trust him to do the right thing.

That's reassuring, right? Could they be any vaguer?

Obama accused McCain of backing away from the McCain-Kennedy comprehensive immigration reform plan for fear of alienating GOP conservatives. But you don't hear him explaining just how "President Obama" would persuade Congress to approve a legalization plan that has been rejected consistently on Capitol Hill. For a candidate who promotes "change," you don't hear him offering any new ideas. You don't hear him criticizing the growing number of Democrats who oppose legalization, at least until after the U.S. borders are secured — which is exactly what McCain is proposing.

McCain says his position is more realistic because Congress will not go along with any form of legalization plan until the American people are reassured that such "amnesty" would not encourage more illegal immigration. But you don't hear him describing just how "President McCain" would secure the borders or how long it would take him to sign a legalization law. You hear him constantly repeating that he would get the governors of each border state to verify that the border has been secured, but that would be like opening a can of political worms.

What constitutes a secured border, a reduction of illegal crossings? By how many? Down to zero? And if that were even possible, what's to stop a couple of hawkish governors from refusing to verify anything or saying they need to see zero illegal crossings for several years? Wouldn't that make such a governor a hero among immigration hawks, and wouldn't it give McCain an excuse for failing to keep his promise?

The immigration issue is so radioactive that you see both Obama and McCain sticking to their scripted rhetoric and refusing to explain the details of how they intend to implement their proposals.

Obama sounds like a broken record, repeating the same lines about how the immigration system is broken without explaining how he would fix it and how illegal immigrants need to be brought out of the shadows without telling us how he would bring them into the light. He keeps saying they need to be on a path to citizenship without showing us how he would clear a new path.

McCain, the other side of the broken record, keeps trying to please both sides of the immigration debate. Depending on his audience, he either emphasizes his past pro-immigrant credentials or his new border-security-first stance. And then he asks American voters to trust him on the details.

Even at the conferences and conventions that clearly favor one particular side of the immigration debate, both Obama and McCain have been able to stick to their vague rhetoric on immigration, and the time for detailed answers is running out.

Unless Obama and McCain get down to some serious face-to-face debating and unless serious journalists get to ask them some important immigration questions, many American voters may go to the polls in November without a clear picture of which candidate jives best with their stances on immigration.

It's as if these two candidates are running away from the immigration minefield instead of leading us out of it.

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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