Compromise is the central element of bipartisanship. In order to gain an inch, you have to give an inch. The political quid pro quos do not always work out perfectly, but they are the surest way to get things done in government.

As this goes to press, the president is urging 20 Republicans to change their mind and back the new immigration reform bill (now called S1639). This will be a Herculean feat if accomplished. The bill's opponents made a circus out of the Senate last week by lobbing so many filibuster amendments into the chamber that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had to yank the bill from the floor. Yet good news is in the air. The Senate has moved closer to a vote after having trimmed down the list of proposed amendments to the bill from 300 to 20.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) made a sound point when in a recent interview on ABC News he told those of his colleagues who opposed the bill: "This is the best deal we're ever going to get."

But some GOP hard-liners and conservative opponents of the bill are not budging. They are trying to torpedo the bill by screaming "amnesty" (or in the case of Michelle Malkin on TownHall.com, "shamnesty"). This is misleading. Amnesty is automatic citizenship. The current bill requires illegal immigrants to pay back taxes and fines, to learn English, and to serve a probationary period, among other hoops they will have to jump through in pursuit of a temporary worker contract or citizenship.

Yet these penalties are too soft for some on the far-right who will not be satisfied until every illegal immigrant — whose only crime was trying to carve out a better life for themselves — is driven out of the country.

"Most illegals are coming here to work. Take away the jobs and they'll return home," writes conservative columnist Rich Tucker. Unless Tucker is blind to the fact that many illegals came here to live, his position is devoid of compassion. In Tucker's mind, the 30-year-old father who shows up to his meat-packing plant job one day and is turned away has only himself to blame for the future hardships his family will face.

Cases like this have already arisen. In the past few years the federal government has been stepping up its enforcement on employers who are suspected of hiring undocumented workers. In march of this year, federal agents raided a New Bedford Massachusetts military supplies factory and detained 350 workers, many of them mothers. So many families were divided in that one day that the state's governor could only describe it as a "humanitarian disaster."

If Tucker and other opponents of the current immigration bill have it their way, such cruelty will only seem like a drop in the bucket in comparison. Is it any wonder that the term "compassionate conservatism" appears oxymoronic to so many?

Opponents of the bill might claim that it isn't just hard-line conservatives who oppose "amnesty." Just about every conservative columnist opposing the immigration bill has cited the Rasmussen Report (a website that suspiciously provides links to websites that oppose the immigration bill) poll showing American support for the Senate bill lingering in the twenties for weeks while the opposition has risen to 48 percent. Yet virtually all of them failed to mention that the same study reported that "65 percent of voters would be willing to support a compromise including a 'very long path to citizenship' provided that 'the proposal required the aliens to pay fines and learn English' and that the compromise 'would truly reduce the number of illegal aliens entering the country'" (as does a recent Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll).

To make things more confusing, a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll found that 51 percent of respondents would be "upset if Congress does not pass an immigration bill" while only 22 percent of respondents would be "pleased."

But all polls report that Americans are not opposed to the conditional amnesty provision; they are simply skeptical of the government's promise to beef up immigration enforcement. Perhaps they are reminded of the failed 1986 amnesty bill that did little to strengthen immigration laws. But unlike the 1986 bill, the current bill's supporters, most notably Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and President Bush, have promised to set aside $4 billion, which will be paid for by fees collected from illegal immigrants, to bolster immigration enforcement.

The onus, then, is on Bush, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and other supporters of the bill to communicate to the American people what this bill will and will not do. A recent CBS/NYTimes poll reported that only 26 percent of Americans know "a lot" about "changing the laws regarding immigration in the United States." This bill is dead in the water if "amnesty" is the only name Americans recognize it by.

Democrats and Republicans in the Senate need to find a solution that both recognizes the pivotal role immigrants play in our economy and establishes immigration laws that allow us to regulate who is and who is not coming into our country. Immigration reform is one of the most pressing issues we face today. Let's not wait another 20 years to do something about it.

E-mail Jeremy Foster at jcarlosfoster at gmail dot com.