Political pundits agree that pocket book issues will once again be driving white working-class voters at the polls for the midterm election in two weeks.

Immigration reform, once a hot button issue, has been pushed to the back burner amid news about the possibility of Ebola-infected people and terrorists coming through our porous southern border. That threat should concern us all.Polling by Rasmussen showed that people earning under $30,000 prefer a reduction in immigration by a 3-1 ratio while a Pew Research poll showed that 69 percent of the public believes the federal government should restrict and control people coming to live in the U.S. more than it already does.Immigration has been a divisive issue among legislators. Many Senate Republicans said they had trouble supporting comprehensive immigration reform legislation because it did not guarantee total border security before granting legal status to millions of illegal immigrants. They also said they will not act on an immigration issue because they cannot trust this administration to enforce the law.Last year, former Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano claimed that the Southern border was secure. The surge of unaccompanied minors from Central America earlier this year disputed that claim.An ominous new report released last week by the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington showed that 883,000 total illegal immigrants have been legally required to leave the U.S, but are still here. Most disturbing is the fact that 167,000 of these are convicted criminals who were released by ICE and are currently at large.Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies who authored the report, noted a pattern of flouting current immigration laws that could ultimately bring harm to U.S. citizens and legal immigrants, in the form of lost jobs, depressed wages, additional social services, and even lost lives. In addition, she said with the rise of ISIS and other terrorist groups around the world, our lax policies represent an unnecessary national security risk.According to the United Nations, 97 percent of the illegal immigrants who enter the U.S. are using the 2,000-mile stretch of border between the U.S. and Mexico, but only 20 percent of those who cross the border illegally are caught. It's also been reported that about 4.5 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. drive on a regular basis, many without licenses or insurance.The California legislature recently voted to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrantss.Taking it a step further, Iowa Congressman Steve King estimates that illegal immigrant drunken drivers kill 13 Americans every day, which means a death toll of 4,745 per year.The last statistic alone is dire enough to command the attention of our elected officials in Washington. It's up to voters to find if their representatives are serious or just playing politics and ducking the immigration issue.By Jim Zbickeditor@tnonline.com