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Immigration is the definitive wedge issue in American politics, but it doesnt have to be. When the Senates Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act failed to pass the House this year, it was the third such failure of comprehensive reform in a decade. Heres a good rule: Three strikes, youre out. Its time for a different approach. Congress should forget comprehensive reform and try for pragmatic and incremental change instead.

Skeptics will thunder that theres no room for compromise, the other party is unreasonable, the issue boils down to either amnesty or deportation and theres nothing in between that anyone can agree on.

Want to bet?

The Hoover Institution has been surveying immigration experts a 40-member working group of scholars from across the political spectrum to test that hypothesis. We have asked them to consider policy innovations that purposefully look at all aspects of immigration, not just the hypersensitive topic of illegal immigration.

Most recently we challenged our panel to think about work visas. The United States issues 60 million visas annually, but only 3 million are for work. Indeed, work visas in the United States are an excessively complex mixture of quotas, rules and bureaucracy.

How could work visas be improved? How would reforms affect the economy? And could liberal, conservative and independent wonks agree on any of it?

The answer is yes. Almost everyone surveyed (86 percent) thought that the bureaucratic thicket regulating temporary work visas should be reduced. There was strong consensus (79 percent) for eliminating the cap on non-agricultural H-2 visas (which cover seasonal jobs such as food servers or landscape crew members), for making the E-Verify program mandatory so that only legal workers could be hired (73 percent) and for unlimited visas for high-skilled STEM workers (66 percent). Sixty-one percent favored using visa pricing (61 percent) requiring employers to pay a fee when they hire guest workers which would provide an incentive for hiring the native-born and is a better way to allocate visas than the centrally planned and administered quotas in place today.

We also asked the scholars to judge nine components for a better temporary work visa system. One idea known as portability had overwhelming support, with 97 percent in favor. So if Congress could do just one thing related to immigration, this is it: Allow visa portability, so that guest workers can change employers and thus avoid exploitation.

As it turned out, some of the least popular ideas were ones that had been embedded in the Senates latest failed comprehensive plan. Can you say poison pill?

Only 20 percent of experts supported the Senate bills requirement for employers to certify that no U.S. worker could be found before they could hire guest workers. Only 14 percent supported the requirement that employers guarantee non-displacement of its U.S. employees.

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Commentary: Theres a better way to do immigration reform

Why Not Immigration Reform?

By: Sheila In Louisville

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Why Not Immigration Reform? - Video

Nigel Farage - Miliband promises immigration reform
Nigel Farage #39;s reactino to Miliband #39;s latest announcement for #39;serious reform #39; to immigration in the UK.

By: MightyDemocracy

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Nigel Farage - Miliband promises immigration reform - Video

Advocates for Central American mothers and children being held in detention in the United States while seeking asylum had hoped that someone from the White House, or maybe the National Security Council, would show up at a Monday hearing of international human rights monitors.

Instead, the administration sent officials who implement policy, but dont set it, to answer concerns about how the Department of Homeland Security has handled the recent influx of unaccompanied minors from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Were disappointed that those making the decisions are not here, Brittney Nystrom, of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, told the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

But their disappointment in the president is even greater.

Youd think that this administration, at this point in time, would want to do the right thing in guaranteeing due process to children, said Mary Meg McCarthy of the Heartland Alliances National Immigrant Justice Center. In some ways, she said, their rights were actually better protected under George W. Bush: The head of ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] at that time, Julie Myers, really believed in access to legal counsel, so there was at least that recognition.

Now, she feels the added irritant of this false compassion, too. What you hear from the administration is, Were trying to protect children from the coyotes, the traffickers they pay to bring them here when they wouldnt be making these journeys if their lives werent in danger.

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama raised hopes high on the separate issue of immigration reform: What I can guarantee, he said, is that we will have in the first year an immigration bill that I strongly support and that Im promoting. And I want to move that forward as quickly as possible.

It isnt only that those expectations were dashed, said Abel Nuez, executive director of the Central American Resource Center in the District, but that there hasnt been much consistency from President Obama over the years.

With Bush, Nuez said, we kind of knew where he was coming from. His party hamstrung him in the end, and the immigration reform he pushed for never came close to happening then, either. But Obama says both things making promises and then pulling back from them when the political calculus changes and thats what I find most frustrating. After promising executive action on immigration by the end of this summer, he came back to the immigration community and said, Oops. Obama says he is waiting until after the upcoming election to act.

On the issue of unaccompanied minors, Obama has acknowledged the seriousness of the gang violence that children are fleeing, but he also has suggested that rumors implying that those who arrived illegally could stay for years were a major factor in the influx.

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Was Bush better on immigration? Disappointed advocates say maybe

Ron Paul - immigration reform
Ron Paul - immigration reform.

By: Economic Crisis 2014

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Ron Paul - immigration reform - Video