Illegal immigrants brought to America as children through no fault of their own, the so-called "Dreamers," have never been closer than they are now to securing a lawful, permanent deal that would allow them to stay.

Democrats, however, are doing their darnedest to prevent it.

The reason won't be discussed on CNN or Univision. It is much easier to point to President Trump's crude comments on immigration than it is to handle the truth, which is that his opponents want an argument rather than action. In an election year, immigration is far more powerful for Democrats as a political issue than it is as an accomplishment in the rearview mirror. They know this just as they have always known it, and so they're digging in their heels and throwing obstacles in the way of a solution.

It's what they did to kill former President George W. Bush's immigration reform during the 2006 election cycle. The majority to pass it was there, but Senate Democrats loaded up the legislation with poison-pill provisions to make sure it died.

The same happened again when former President Barack Obama fumbled his chance to pass serious immigration legislation when the Democrats had a filibuster-proof Senate majority in 2009. Instead of putting a proposal in front of Congress, he decided to do nothing except demagogue the issue in order to motivate Hispanic voters to turn out in 2010 and "punish our enemies, and ... reward our friends."

He sought to give the impressions that immigration would then be dealt with generously in 2011, after a third consecutive Democratic election victory. It was a desperate move, and, to no one's surprise, it didn't work, and the Democrats lost Congress. But they retained their ability to lure Hispanic voters with false hopes of future immigration legislation, and bespattered Republicans with ugly and unmerited charges of racism because the GOP opposed Democratic reform plans.

Democrats, it is clear, have an entirely cynical approach to immigration that, by right, should discredit their moral preening in the era of Trump. Most recently, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., asserted that no one can credibly doubt his party's good intentions, given that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was created by a Democratic president over Republican opposition. This simplistic partisan comment is bunk.

As Trump's public negotiating session made clear, there's a serious chance right now to make DACA permanent at no great price in Democratic concessions. It will happen the moment a few more members of the party of the Left agree to climb aboard a reasonable compromise. But Whitehouse and his colleagues don't want to fix DACA, because that would take it off the table as a campaign issue during the midterm elections this November.

The party also does not want to upset their wealthy, white, urban, progressive donor base, which comprises their most militant supporters, which has its heart set on impeaching Trump, not on making deals that might make him presidency more successful.

Finally, there are a number of Democrats in the Senate who have aspirations to rise to prominence nationally, and they understand that if they agree to any deal with their archenemy in the Oval Office, they can kiss their hopes of a 2020 presidential nomination goodbye.

Democrats' history on immigration is one of empty rhetoric and base deception. Their top priority is evidently not an amnesty or a regularization of the worthiest immigrants, such as the Dreamers. Rather, it is to put off resolution as far into the future as possible, thereby retaining a potent issue which they hope will give them a monopoly on the fastest growing voting demographic.

Perhaps they'll get away playing this game now and for a while longer, especially with the White House occupied by someone as willing as Trump is to offend immigrants. But it's a matter of time before Hispanic voters concerned about immigration catch on to the bait-and-switch with which they are being tricked and taken for granted. It's just what happened with the white working class, which used to vote Democratic but caught on that Democrats' promises to them were will-o'-the-wisp, always disappearing beyond the next election.