Immigration proved too hot for Bush, Congress to handle

Its authors were operating in a very different political environment than in 1986. Back then, there were far fewer illegal immigrants, concentrated in a handful of states. Crafting an immigration compromise required lawmakers only to balance the competing concerns of special interests directly affected by the policy -- employers, immigrant groups, agribusiness; lawmakers largely didn't have to worry about managing powerful national political forces. Few politicians thought of it as a life-or-death political issue.

"It was much more an insiders' debate," said Doris Meissner, who served as immigration commissioner during the Clinton administration. "It did not engage the country in the way this debate is engaging the country. It was not a galvanizing issue."

Now immigration is a national issue that reaches far beyond the interests directly affected. And border security concerns have heightened since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

A Gallup Poll in 2000 found that only 15% of those surveyed worried a great deal about illegal immigration; that jumped to 45% this year.

What's more, polls indicate that the issue is figuring more prominently in how voters size up political candidates. In a poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press last month, 54% said a presidential candidate's stand on immigration would be very important in their decision on how to vote; 34% said it would be somewhat important. As recently as 2004, immigration was not even in the top 20 issues.

"What is clear is the level of anxiety about illegal immigration has been rising, and been accelerating in the last few years," said Roberto Suro, director of the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center. "One element of the anxiety is a sense the federal government has failed in one of its basic responsibilities."

Grover Norquist, a conservative activist who supported the Bush immigration initiative, contends that politicians and analysts have exaggerated the potential political fallout from supporting liberalization of immigration law.

"You cannot show me an election where immigration was the deciding issue," Norquist said. "If this was a silver-bullet issue, where is President Tancredo?" he said, referring to the longshot presidential campaign of Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), a leading critic of illegal immigration.