Outspoken on immigration? Not until 2013

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich made his way into news highlights by suggesting in Tuesday's Republican debate that something short of instant expulsion might be in order for all illegal immigrants in the United States. Essentially, he evoked a shade of gray in the long-running issue -- which prompted some pundits to play up the position as risky for the one-time House speaker.

"I do not believe that the people of the United States are going to take people who have been here a quarter century, who have children and grandchildren, who are members of the community, who may have done something 25 years ago, separate them from their families, and expel them," said Gingrich, who is challenging Mitt Romney for the top spot in polls.

When rival Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) immediately tried to trumpet that statement as supporting amnesty for 11 million illegal immigrants, Gingrich replied: "I specifically did not say we'd make the 11 million people legal."

For several years, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy was this region's most vocal elected official on immigration enforcement. Contacted for comment on Wednesday, Levy, a Republican, said in a statement from his office: "Voters don't like to be told that they're being heartless because they want their borders enforced. The most sensible solution would be to mandate E-Verify for all employers. Once illegal aliens can no longer get jobs, the problem would resolve itself through attrition."

Last year, after all the controversy over the role of the undocumented in the county's expenses, taxes, housing and daily life -- and after the notoriety of the 2008 Marcelo Lucero slaying -- Levy largely stuck to touting E-Verify, the federal verification system for employers to confirm workers' immigration status, when the issue of immigration was raised in his brief run for governor. As Levy's tenure winds down, his successor, Democrat Steve Bellone, is widely expected to travel a different course on this ever-visceral topic.

"It continues to be a hot-button issue," said John Durso, president of the Long Island Federation of Labor. "With the change of leadership in Suffolk County, it will cool down because cooler and more progressive heads will prevail."

But as hot-button issues go, this one seems to have already decreased in temperature, certainly compared with the months preceding the last presidential election. In 2007, Colorado Republican Tom Tancredo made illegal immigration his main issue, and the attempt by then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, to issue driver's licenses in New York to those without proof of legal immigration status became a big piñata for the GOP.

After Democrat Barack Obama became president, deportations spiked, a federal review process was launched over who is targeted, a sour economy slowed the flow over the border and border patrols increased as had been planned and launched under President George W. Bush.

And still, a comprehensive immigration reform bill, which Americans tend to tell pollsters they support (and Bush attempted to enact), remains elusive for Obama and Congress. Obama's record on the topic has thrilled neither the "let-em-stays" or the "kick-em-outs." The crackdown actions of Arizona and other western states generate most of the heat.

Sweeping national solutions will stay on the back burner, at least until 2013.