At last night's GOP debate, Rick Santorum gave the Democrats a pass on immigration - the issue where they're most vulnerable. Not only that, but he might have exposed a weakness on the immigration issue that's worse than just giving the Democrats a pass.

Here's what Santorum said:

The president had a year where he had control of the legislature could have passed any bill he wanted. They didn't take a vote in the senate and never proposed a bill this is a political issue for the president. He's playing political games with a very important group of people in America. We need to stop the political games and get the solutions. That's not what they are doing in Washington.

So, what's wrong with that? Let's see:

1. Santorum is falsely assuming that we need some form of major legislation. He isn't going after the root of the problem: we don't need new major legislation so much as we need the current laws to be enforced. Santorum isn't concentrating on why the current laws aren't enforced and he isn't taking actions that would make it more likely that they're enforced.

2. Santorum isn't going after the Democrats where they're weakest. For instance, in their response to his comments [1], the Democrats point out how it was the Republicans who blocked the DREAM Act. That's a *good thing*, but Santorum is acting like it was a bad thing. The DREAM Act is an openly anti-American bill that would allow the illegal aliens covered by it to take college educations from U.S. citizens. Instead of pointing out that the Democrats want to take college educations away from U.S. citizens in order to give them to the illegal aliens covered by the bill, Santorum is (falsely) pretending that the Democrats were the roadblock to that bill.

3. Santorum is implicitly supporting Hispanic ethnic nationalism and he's assuming that all Hispanics are the same; not all Hispanics support illegal immigration. Instead of calling on Hispanics - Cuban-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, etc. - to support our laws and calling out the far-left ethnic nationalists among them (Luis Gutierrez, Bill Richardson, etc.) who support illegal activity, Santorum is assuming that all oppose our laws and do so out of ethnic solidarity.

The debate - as have all the other presidential debates - was a waste of time that did not do a public service. And, Santorum didn't rise above it.

[1] The Democrat's response is at democrats.org/news/may5debate/
fact_check_santorum_on_immigration, which includes among other "fact checks", this AP headling:

AP: Senate Republicans Doomed An Effort That Would Have Given Hundreds Of Thousands Of Young Immigrants A Path To Legal Status After They Voted To Block The DREAM Act. [AP, 12/20/10]