Last week, Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) introduced the Bipartisan Reform of Immigration through Good Enforcement Resolution in the lower house of Congress. According to Congressman Chaffetz, the resolution does three things:

• make E-Verify mandatory for all employers, and hold employees accountable as well;
• provide sufficient border infrastructure and manpower to secure and control our borders; and,
• reject amnesty and any legal status which pardons those here in violation of our laws.

He also told the Deseret News that 'no amnesty means to me that we're not simply going to excuse them and allow them to stay here in the country. Will we listen to discussion and proposals (about possibly imposing fines or work requirements to stay in country)? Of course. But no amnesty.'

That sounds a little more reasonable than the no way, no how approach of many who say that any form of legal status for those in the country illegally is out of the question. If the debate is focused on how steep the fines will be and whether there is a path to citizenship or not, we'll have made major progress toward finally coming up with a plan that everyone can live with to fix the immigration system.

In another hopeful note of compromise, Congressional Daily (wish I could link but it's a subscriber site) was reporting Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) as saying that the Brown election in Massachusetts doesn't kill immigration reform:

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy said in an interview he does not believe the Brown election dooms the chances for immigration reform.
 
"There's not going to be a Democratic or a Republican immigration bill. It's got to be bipartisan," Leahy said.
 
But he added that an alternative might be to take up smaller immigration proposals rather than one big comprehensive bill. Measures that could be considered individually include the so-called AgJOBS bill, which would help the agriculture industry, and the EB-5 investors visa program, under which foreigners who invest at least $1 million into creating U.S. jobs can receive citizenship.

"But there are those who don't like that, of course, because they figure then you cherry pick and you don't have the incentive to push through a bigger one," Leahy added.

I highlighted the part about an alternative approach because it really represents an important development in immigration politics. Pro-immigration groups have been adamant that immigration reform must be comprehensive rather than piecemeal. As Leahy noted, the piecemeal immigration reform idea gets many upset because it potentially removes supporters from legalization - especially advocates for highly skilled immigrants.

For someone like Leahy to speculate publicly that piecemeal immigration reform is a legitimate strategy choice for pro-immigration advocates has to be seen as a major potential compromise of the same type as Chaffetz's. It will take such open-mindedness on the part of the legalization advocates and the enforcement hawks if we're going to tackle immigration reform this year.