Two standard phrases crop up the instant that lawmakers, bureaucrats and the media begin to talk about immigration: Resolve the problem and comprehensive immigration reform. Talk in Washington about resolving any large-scale challenge is rather ambitious given the city’s ever-steepening warps in its already pockmarked ideological-rhetorical terrain. Immigration is not an easy subject to talk about dispassionately, and so how Washington gains traction on immigration no doubt will be affected greatly by how lawmakers and the President manage the fast-approaching fiscal cliff.
The 2012 election, it is said, opened Republicans to accept the possibility that they might have to compromise on immigration, something that most of those commonly referred to as the Tea party adamantly oppose. The corporate side of the Republican equation, however, is in favor of something being done, and corporate America has more of the power now. It is not surprising that it also is driving a good part of the discussion of how to avert the cliff.