Immigration Impasse: Is Comprehensive Immigration Reform Impossible?

The longest government shutdown in U.S. history was triggered by an impasse over border security.

In this hour, Politics host Amy Walter asks, is comprehensive immigration reform impossible? From the summer of 2001 when a bipartisan agreement looked hopeful through today, a look at why compromise remains out of reach.

Shari Robertson is a documentary filmmaker. Back in the early 2000s, she and her filmmaking partner Michael Camerini embedded themselves within this reform effort, driven by President George W. Bush.

But how did we end up here, where we are now, where an immigration bill with bipartisan support seems almost unimaginable? To make sense of this Amy checked in with Chuck Hagel. He’s a former Republican senator from Nebraska and was one of the co-sponsors of the 2006 immigration bill.

Cecilia Muñoz was considered President Obama’s conscience on immigration. She was deeply involved in the reform effort that took place during his administration and gives us the insider view on why that failed.

In 2011, Jose Antonio Vargas officially came out of the closet as an undocumented immigrant. This was years before millions of others would join him.  And he did it in the most public way a person could - he wrote a cover story in The New York Times Magazine called, “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant.” He is now the founder of Define American, and is the author of “Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen.” He joins the program to share his analysis of the current impasse over immigration.

Amy's Final Take: We had an ambitious idea this week. Try to explain - in an hour - why Congress has failed in its last two attempts to pass comprehensive immigration reform. The goal was not to leave you with the answer - but for you to appreciate all the cross-currents and challenges that face policymakers.

But, I was struck by two things over the course of putting this show together. First, it is actually not that hard to pass an immigration reform bill. The biggest impediment to success is the lack of political will and the lack of willingness to sacrifice and compromise. That includes lots of people - activists, organizations, people on the frontlines of the issue - not just the politicians.

The second is that whenever we talk about immigration reform we hear a lot from the political figures involved, but not as much from real people. I want to leave with the voices from the people we heard at the top of the show.

And a special thanks to our friends at The Marshall Project for sharing the testimonial tape in this episode. It was all collected as part of a project called We Are Witnesses, in partnership with Newsy.

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