It’s not just the Left pushing amnesty. Last night Karl Rove was on TV complaining that Senator Obama derailed Rove’s amnesty bill by voting for “poison pill” amendments.
As I recall in 2006 the Republican congress had two different bills :
1) A watered down amnesty bill in the Senate, and
2) a strict enforcement bill in the house making being illegal a felony.
The Dems started pointing at some of the House bill provisions to rally Hispanics and others to turn on Republicans, The house Republicans in fear tried to remove some of those provisions but Dems were able to join with some conservatives to keep the House bill from being modified (eased) and the two completely different bills died before the election.
Then Pelosi took over the congress in 2007 and things went from bad to worse when GWB announced it was good opportunity to get an immigration bill passed. Poor Tony Snow was on Rush show and kept telling Rush to “Wait to see the final bill” We were able to get the Senate bill killed but not until after much damage to the Republican party.
This was another nail that allowed Democrats in congress to win a historic second election in 2008. Rather than a backlash against a new Democrat congress, voters were still mad at Republicans in 2008. Bush's amnesty attempts were toxic politically to Republicans. Alternatively so was the House enforcement/felony bill that Dems helped keep from being eased, as was having to kill the bill.
In 2006 Republican congress also re-authorized the voting rights act and GWB signed that Obama is using to challenge voter ID laws. That bought them NO votes in November 2006.
Republicans need a different approach to Hispanics voters, the above was a huge failure. Hispanics are a fast growing voter base but making that base grow faster in this climate will make things even worse.