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For some reason, its being treated as a serious blow to immigration reforms hopes that Mitch McConnell said today that the conflicts over it are unresolvable. Via Sahil Kapur, heres what McConnell said:

I think we have a sort of irresolvable conflict here, he told reporters at his weekly press conference. The Senate insists on comprehensive, the House says it wont go to conference with the Senate on comprehensive, and wants to look at step-by-step. I dont see how you get to an outcome this year with the two bodies in such different places.

Oh, come on. The main differences that could derail reforms chances have nothing to do with whether this will be done in one comprehensive bill or step by step. Dems have already said they have no objection to House Republicans passing reform in pieces, as long as the end result is something that in sum resembles comprehensive reform.

And thats the rub there is a debate over whether reform will end up as something comprehensive, but this debate centers on a core ideological difference over what should be done about the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country. If anything,McConnells claim suggests Republicans are already casting around for ways to blame reforms failure on procedural differences, rather than on that fundamental dispute.

Heres how you get to a deal despite these irresolvable differences. House Republicans pass a bunch of reforms in pieces, including proposals thatbringthe 11 millionout of the shadows(Republicans will want to call this probation), and create a series of achievable and verifiablesecurity benchmarks, some of which are met at the outset, and others of which are met while the undocumented are working.GOP Reps. Paul Ryan and Mario Diaz-Balart have both hinted at this possibility.

Dems give up the special pathway to citizenship, and instead agree to accept legalization in exchange for a GOP agreement to smooth existing pathways to citizenship. To my knowledge, that latter policy ideais understood by Republicans who want to get to Yes as a necessary component of any deal that gets Dems to concede on citizenship. In this scenario, both sides are making real concessions.

Yes, Republicans say they wontenter intoconference talks with Dems because #Obummer wont enforce the law. Whatever. If they get as far as the scenario outlined above, the two sides can enter into legislative Ping-Pong that unfolds as back channel talks take place. Republicans can say they didnt pass anything comprehensive,that they insisted onenforcement and not amnesty, andthat theynever supported a special pathway to citizenship andall those things will be true. At that point what matters is whether Dems can get a handful of GOP Senators a number of whom already voted for a more comprehensive bill.

It will not be easy forHouse Republicans to get to the place where they accept legalization, or probation, before opponents of reform declare security and enforcement 100 percent complete. Thats becauseopponents will never allow for that to be acknowledged, since the whole point of insisting on it before legalization is to kill reform. At the end of the process, Republicans will have to vote on a final bill that will also be opposed by foes.

The bottom line is that Republicans will have to getopponents angry at some point ifreform is to happen, and decide instead to throw their lot inwith GOP-aligned constituencies like the business community, evangelicals, agricultural interests, and tech interests. The decision whether torisk thatwrathwill be made by House Republicans.They may decide not to go through with it. But Mitch McConnell is largely irrelevant to that process, which is to say, the processthat will determine if reform lives or dies.

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The rest is here:

If Republicans want immigration reform, theyll have to ...