Politicians on both sides of the aisle fear it. When polled, people say it matters. Then when they vote, it seems to have little effect on their choices.

After all, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, supported the comprehensive immigration reform so detested by anti-immigration forces. Four years ago, the GOP gubernatorial candidate who tried to turn immigration into a winning issue, former state Sen. Fern Shubert of Union County, got crushed in the primary. And attempts in the most recent primary to portray Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory as weak on immigration failed miserably.

Against this backdrop, the big, corporate donors to politicians of both parties know well that immigration reform lacking some form of amnesty will damage the economy and their bottom line.

Democrats with political aspirations, like would-be governor Beverly Perdue, take a tough line because they don’t want to be hammered by Republicans.

Republican state Sen. Robert Pittenger, aspiring to be the next lieutenant governor, sponsors a tough immigration bill that would double- and triple-check anyone applying for government benefits of any kind to ensure that they’re in the Unites States legally. He does so with no expectation that the legislation will go anywhere, but to try to use it as a bludgeon against Democratic opponent and fellow state Sen. Walter Dalton. So, the Democrats in charge in Raleigh respond by passing incremental get-tough legislation. Then they quietly hope that the issue doesn’t rise up like a cobra, spit in their collective eye and deliver a poisonous bite.

And in Washington, even less happens, whether Democrats or Republican are in charge.

It’s again an election year. Perhaps 2008 will be the year that someone is bitten. Certainly, immigration is always right there, making news in some form or fashion.

In North Carolina, the community college system and its new president, Scott Ralls, decided to stop admitting illegal immigrants based on an advisory opinion from Attorney General Roy Cooper. Cooper’s agency cited a federal code listing post-secondary education as a benefit to which illegal immigrants are not entitled.

The opinion and decision caused a bit of a row. Gov. Mike Easley — who once held Cooper’s job — questioned the opinion. Federal officials said the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t require the schools to determine students’ legal status. And it appears the decision makes North Carolina the sole state barring illegal immigrants as degree-program students at community colleges.

Mind you, this brouhaha is based on numbers showing 112 out of nearly 300,000 degree- program students are here illegally.

Surely the very foundations of civilized society are about to fall.

But if they don’t, and if after the fall elections no one has died from the immigration bite, perhaps the pandering, the dread and the fear-mongering can give way to something a bit more useful.