Continuing along their apparent strategy to meet political process with inanity, Republicans chose ex-Birther Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La) to respond to the President's speech. Birthers are a fringe element of anti-Obama activists that claim the President was not born in the U.S. When questioned on his beliefs, Boustany initally replied that in terms of Obama's citizenship, "I think there are questions, we'll have to see," but has since retracted his words. Once again, Republicans are feeding destructive and negative energies in a volatile political landscape, rather than working for change.

Channing Kennedy, writing for RaceWire, asks "Why is our conversation around immigration so often driven to extremes, both of language and of policy?" Highlighting another extreme use of language seemingly embedded in the immigration dialogue, the post features a video from Rinku Sen's "Word" series, which touches on how the term Illegal, when used to referenced the undocumented, is a "gateway to racism and exploitation." Sen has a question of her own: "What terrible, scary things have these people done to deserve having their entire being replaced by a single word?"

Sen touches on an important point: The conversation about immigation, a issue that is so far-reaching in our culture, has been ludicrously reduced to one-word epithets (Illegal) and playground diction (You lie!). This obscures the very complex and social issues that must be addressed if we are to consider ourselves a sane and modern society in the world. New America Media reports on the results of a study of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement's detention process. The study, which was conducted by the Detention Watch Network, reveals what many feared: "We don’t know who’s detained or why, that they don’t have a release process, that they don’t track family ties or make legal immigrants available for alternatives to detention." This is not acceptable.

Nor is it acceptable that humans who sacrificed their bodies and health to help dig Manhattan out of the toxic rubble in September 2001 are being ignored. In "Eight Years Later, Undocumented Ground Zero Laborers At Greater Risk," New America Media reports on another tragic consequence of ignoring immigration reform. The undocumented laborers who worked at Ground Zero "are at greater risk of chronic health problems because they are excluded from federally funded programs to treat ground zero workers." As Jose Loja, who cleaned pipes at the site says, "We're all suffering from the same diseases." And yet since our current take on the undocumented is that they deserve less than the rest of us, we don't all suffer the same fate when struck by those diseases.

Nor are we to have a clear idea of who even makes up the current social body, if the rift between those who feel the undocumented should boycott the 2010 census and those who feel the idea is "insulting" or even "stupid" continues to grow. Nor will 30,000 Haitians who live here have their case heard for why "Undocumented Haitians Deserve to Stay Here."

Until we address the needs of the immigrant community that lives in shadows that President Obama pledged to banish, people will continue to suffer. Until the White House steps up as boldly as Joe Wilson, who will guide the immigration discussion in a humane fashion? The national immigration dialogue, if delayed, will continue to degrade.