The complexity of writing and enacting comprehensive immigration reform at the congressional level is such that seemingly conflicting news reports of progress and setbacks can both be right. Today is no different. First, the progress: the Senate voted to send the comprehensive immigration reform bill to the floor for debate, which will likely last for the next few weeks.

Matthew Yglesias reported two weeks ago about a compromise on so-called high-skilled worker visas, or H1-B visas, that helped paved the way for the bill’s passage out of committee and gave it a shove forward. He wrote:

The basic issue is that the Gang of 8 immigration framework both expanded the H1-B skilled guest worker program and added some new hoops that companies have to jump through if they want to hire H1-B workers. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a longtime ally of the technology industry on this issue, had a couple of amendments that would basically pair those hoops back. Dick Durbin, a major ally of the union groups that don’t like H1-B but also a major ally of Latino advocacy organizations, did not like those amendments.

The result was that they basically met somewhere in the middle, with the amended version of the bill passing out of committee with 13 yes votes and 5 no votes; Hatch was a yes vote. Hatch wouldn’t promise to vote for the final bill, but his support gave the bill momentum and allowed the process to take a not-insignificant step forward. Yglesias approvingly noted that this is “how the legislative process in the United States is supposed to work,” but acknowledged that the high-skilled visa portion is far from the most controversial aspect of the bill. Nonetheless, the bill proceeded with key support from both sides.

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The coverage of the effort to reform the country’s massively inefficient and outdated immigration system has usually focused on where the controversy has been thus far: Republican supporters of comprehensive immigration reform vs. the Republicans in opposition to this particular legislative effort. But the coverage in recent days has shifted, reminding us that Democrats are part of the process too, and not simply along for the ride.

It’s easy to forget that, because the general assumption has been that since Democrats support immigration reform they’ll sign on to virtually any bill crafted by a bipartisan working group, confident that at least their most pressing concerns and priorities are addressed. It isn’t unlike the ease with which Democrats can usually get Republicans to support a robust projection of American power when there are national security threats to be addressed. But two stories from the Washington Examiner’s David Drucker and one from Politico illustrate the challenge of massive reform bills crafted by two ideologically distinct parties.

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Last week I noted that President Obama has twice derailed comprehensive immigration reform–the first time (as a senator) with his support for “poison pill” amendments, and the second time with a temporary fix that did nothing to restructure the broken immigration system. It seems that now, however, it is the House GOP planting land mines under the reform process.

Politico reports that key House Republicans are considering dividing up immigration reform into a series of separate, minor fixes. This is unlikely to work, and may very well stop the momentum that had finally gathered in Congress and the sense of urgency felt by many in the party to get the immigration issue off the table once and for all. (Marco Rubio, for his part, will reportedly deliver the Republican response to the president’s State of the Union address in both English and Spanish, increasing his outreach efforts to the Hispanic community.)

That is not to say that each facet of the system isn’t in need of some improvements, or that the individual pieces of legislation that would come out of this effort wouldn’t be worth enacting. It also may be the case that some Republicans in the House are aware that their party is the one most likely to block comprehensive reform, and are therefore making a good-faith attempt to craft legislation they know can pass the House. That would at least salvage some of the work being done if the reform effort stalls. But there are a couple of problems with the GOP’s plan. Politico reports:

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