This week’s Senate stalemate on immigration sent a sobering message: Distrust between Republicans and Democrats has reached a level that can derail agreements, even when leaders in both parties publicly endorse the same policies.
Almost all the negotiators on the issue agreed that a clear majority of senators — as many as two-thirds — were prepared to vote for compromise legislation that would toughen border security, create a new guest-worker program and establish a path to citizenship for most of the estimated 12 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally.