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"You've got business groups and unions very often joined together on one side on this and movement conservatives and rank-and-file working class voters on the other side, with all of this playing out against the backdrop of the ongoing political battle for the Hispanic vote between Democrats and Republicans," said Democratic pollster Geoffrey Garin. "The politics and the unusual coalitions make all the political choices much more difficult."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/02/AR2006010201376_pf.htmlPolitical Splits on Immigration Reflect Voters' Ambivalence
Americans Favor Tighter Borders but Divide on Entrants' Fate
By Dan Balz Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, January 3, 2006; A07
When Congress returns to the unfinished business of immigration early in the new year, lawmakers will be trying to reconcile sometimes conflicting public attitudes on an issue that has become a crusade to some conservative Republicans but has defied effective solutions over the past three decades.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll taken in mid-December found Americans alarmed by the federal government's failure to do more to block the flow of illegal immigration and critical of the impact of illegal immigration on the country but receptive to the aspirations of undocumented immigrants living and working in the United States.
"You wonder why politicians are not always consistent," said Republican pollster Glen Bolger. "It's because public opinion's not always consistent."
Immigration still ranks below the war in Iraq, terrorism, health care and the economy on the public's list of priorities, but in many parts of the country -- not just those areas near the Mexican border -- it has become an issue of pressing significance because of its economic, racial and, more recently, national security implications.<snip>