By Niall O'Dowd

THE current session of Congress ends this week with grave disappointment that no decisive plan to address immigration reform has secured passage.

The best — or worst — we can hope for is some draconian measures on border security, which, in the absence of a broad reform bill, will do nothing to address the underlying problem of creating a coherent and workable immigration policy.

The demonizing of Hispanic immigrants by Republicans has been a curious feature of this year’s election. Hispanic undocumented are characterized as almost in league with al-Qaeda in efforts to bring the country down. It is a sad reflection of what passes for politics these days.

However, much has been accomplished, including a good bill that passed through the Senate earlier this year, despite the fact that very few gave it any hope of doing so at the beginning of the last session.

There is much to build on, and if the Republicans lose control of the House as is generally expected in November, the situation would look much more promising in the New Year.

Between now and then there will be a lame duck session of Congress, when the parties come back after the election to serve out the remainder of their terms.

There is still a chance that legislation could make its way through the Senate and House in that session, but it is a particularly hard issue to predict.

The lame duck session makes it possible for legislators to vote without any immediate election concerns. On the other hand, if the House changes hands and goes from Republican to Democratic, the likelihood of legislation decreases.

It is unfortunate we have reached this point in this current session of Congress but it is not at all surprising.

The decision of the House leadership of the Republican Party to play election politics with the immigration issue, instead of addressing the differences between the bill they passed and the one that went through the Senate, was a failure of political will.

It is always tempting to play to the political crowd, especially when an election beckons, and the House Speaker Denis Hastert and his leadership team decided to take the easy course on this occasion.

Whether they will regret it in the wake of the November elections remains to be seen. Many far thinking Republicans, including party chairman Ken Mehlman, believe that enormous damage may be done to the prospects of Republicans gaining among Hispanic voters because of the current anti-immigrant mood in the party.

There is precedent for this in California where a former governor, Pete Wilson, came to office slamming undocumented workers. The subsequent backlash from Hispanic voters has hobbled the Republican Party in California ever since.

It is important to note that leading Republicans in the Senate, including Senators John McCain, Arlen Specter and Lindsey Graham, have been outspoken on the need for a comprehensive reform bill on immigration.

In the aftermath of the upcoming election we can only hope their voices will be the ones listened too. We should also note that President George W. Bush has remained steadfast on this issue and has called for immigration reform.

Meanwhile, Democrats have been strangely silent on this issue for the past few months, and it was noted that they failed to put immigration reform on their list of things to do it they take over Congress next year.

We need to see better plans from both parties. This session of Congress failed to address an issue that millions of Americans from coast to coast wish to see dealt with. The failure to do so may cost the parties heavily.