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Reflecting on his own struggles with immigration reform a decade ago, former Congressman David Dreier last week said, "The issue of immigration has become one of the ugliest out there."

Dreier, a California Republican who served 32 years in Congress before retiring in 2013, was reflecting on the blowback he faced after speaking out in favor of immigration reform proposed under the George W. Bush administration. Speaking at a roundtable at Claremont McKenna College in California, he recalled being subject to years of withering attacks from anti-immigration groups who viewed him as too soft on illegal immigrants.

Dreier said that he believes there is a broad consensus among Republicans in the Senate and the House to come to an agreement on reform, but he remained concerned that politics would get in the way.

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The president's expected executive action to delay deportations of more illegal immigrants is likely to act as a catalyst for those opposed to any compromise with the White House. As Republican strategist Mike Murphy noted on the same panel as Dreier, Democrats have a possible incentive for creating that ill will.

"In the rubble of defeat it is easy to get mean and cynical and political in a partisan situation," he said. "There are going to be voices in the White house saying. 'Mr. President, go do the executive order on immigrationRepublicans will overreact like crazy and it will do huge damage to the GOP."

And if it plays out that way, with each party postponing action on reform in the hope that it will do damage to the other party's hopes for 2016, the only thing we can count on over the next two years is more demagoguery, more deportations, and less certainty about U.S. immigration policy.

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Immigration reform confusion