They bothered to try because, as Rush, Cruz, and Sessions have explained, by offering these amendments, they exposed that the Gang of 8 wanted nothing less than amnesty. Also, as you have pointed out, all three Senators have stated a true desire for immigration reform—but not amnesty based reform. They want border security, a moratorium on H1B’s, and deportations. Doing nothing, not even trying to have the needs of their constituencies met, isn’t what they were elected to do. As Cruz said during that committee session “Border security is not a trivial matter to the people of Texas.”
I’m sorry that you think my years of service to the Republic are not “all they’re cracked up to be”.
None of these three people during that time period were ever talking about deportation of illegal aliens. You're assuming that today's politics was active during that time period. They weren't.
They want border security, a moratorium on H1B’s, and deportations.
A bizarre and totally false statement, assuming you're still talking about back then. (You strangely shift to the present tense while, logically, you should be referring to the past.) Cruz's amendments sought to expand H1B Visas and to double green cards during that time period. Of course, deportation was never anything anybody was talking about.