Some 150 children are reportedly appealing to President Barack Obama to halt deportations of their parents until Congress overhauls our immigration laws.

The latter cannot happen soon enough. Few issues excite more hateful, threatening diatribes on Internet posts than the continuing chaos and confusion surrounding the issue of illegal aliens.

It is fast becoming our next civil war, a war of words if not worse.

Jim Ludwick, president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform, was just quoted by OregonLive.com with a sentiment typical of the fed-up.

"Americans have the sense of the rule of law," Ludwick said, "and they are outraged when people put themselves above the law, like illegal aliens do." Waffling on reforms by timid lawmakers and continued failure throughout the country to enforce existing laws are combining to ratchet up outrage, feed border vigilantism and fuel new layers of enforcement born of desperation.

The Associated Press last week reported that Arizona is poised to become first in the nation to criminalize the presence of illegal aliens through expansion of trespassing laws.

The proposal to require police to try check immigration status when they have reasonable suspicions, Jacques Billeaud reported, had cleared the state Senate and was being considered by the House.

It's another testament to what happens when outrageous and insupportable indecision on any growing crisis is quietly sanctioned for far too long by those voted into office.

The Attleboro area is exempt from deep frustrations expressed by Americans living along the border with Mexico. But the need for remediation is no less urgent for this area. Those here legally may become unjustly suspect at any point in time; those here illegally are breaking the law.

They are also unable to protect themselves from abuses. Who says illegals get paid more than pennies? To whom would they complain? What if one is the victim of crime? Of spousal battering?

On the other side are vocal critics. They abhor medical care for the undocumented when many citizens go without, moves to offer driver's licenses, access to education and this May's Supreme Court ruling on ID theft. It tossed an illegal immigrant's conviction, reported media, saying the government had not proven he knew documents and Social Security numbers he was given belonged to someone else.

What a snarl all around.

Everyone, absolutely everyone deserves an immigration system resolution that's clear and unassailable: Sieve-like borders are agitating worry not only over alien crossings but gun trafficking and terrorist access. Will we get that resolution?

Obama finally met last week with lawmakers on the topic that will challenge him like no other on his full plate: How can compassion, possible amnesty and existing laws be woven together in ways that will placate everyone, or anyone? The conundrum is reflected in a recent appeal to the president by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who note that it's been clear for years our country's immigration system requires repair and that reform legislation should not be delayed. "We urge respect and observance of all just laws, and we do not approve or encourage the illegal entry of anyone into our country," the conference stated. "From a humanitarian perspective, however, our fellow human beings, who migrate to support their families, continue to suffer at the hands of immigration policies that separate them from family members and drive them into remote parts of the American desert, sometimes to their deaths. This suffering should not continue."

This is, in a heartbeat, the basic dilemma of conflicting sentiments that must be reconciled by our president and Congress. But how? And when?

What's certain is the imperative to get things rolling before an escalation of human misery on all sides of the dispute births even more needless hatred and anxiety.

BETSY SHEA-TAYLOR, a former editor and writer with The Sun Chronicle, is a freelance writer. She can be reached at prosewing@aol.com.