Comprehensive immigration reform for 2010 and beyond is dead. There, we've said it. It is time to concentrate on alternative strategies.

As the biggest supporters of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR), which was founded out of this newspaper, it gives us no pleasure whatsoever to say this.

We know first-hand of many Irish undocumented who live in fear that the knock on the door will come. They are very much in our thoughts as we write this.

But we also owe them the truth. The Irish need to change tactics.

The reality is that comprehensive immigration reform has been on life support for months now, ever since it became obvious President Obama did not have the magical touch to make partisanship disappear in Washington.

Last time around, the persistent pressure of the anti-immigrant lobby, with its ability to boil a highly complex issue down to one term – amnesty – meant that nothing could be passed.

This time around, that same group, armed with the deep recession which has scared American workers even more, is waiting to pounce and kill any such initiative again.

Despite this, some immigration groups are insisting that success can still be achieved.

There is more than a hint of desperation in all of this, as if the sheer repeating of the mantra will make reform happen.

But the math does not lie. There is no chance in hell that a filibuster-proof majority exists in the Senate for most anything right now, let alone immigration reform. The Senate is where American legislation goes to die.

It might be possible to squeak a bill by the House, but there are more than enough anti-reform votes in the Senate to block any hope of passage. That will not change.

For 15 years or so, a great effort was undertaken to pass a comprehensive reform bill. It looked like the Promised Land when the Kennedy/McCain bill looked certain to gain passage in 2007, but a filibuster-proof majority never existed.

Now there are even fewer votes despite a Democratic majority. Therefore, it is time to ditch comprehensive and focus on parts of immigration reform that can pass.

The Dream Act is one. It would allow undocumented people who were brought here as children to become legal. It is cruel and unusual punishment to deport such people who, through no fault of their own, were brought here often as infants, and have known no other life.

Start by passing that. Let's then look at what other areas we can address and adopt a piecemeal approach rather than a grand sweeping plan which has brought us nowhere.

The definition of madness is that we continue to do the same thing over and over hoping for a different result. It is time to stop the madness.

First, we must be honest and admit that there is no political future for comprehensive reform. Only then can we actually start to get legislation passed.

The Irish case is very much one that can be presented in this new light. We can still work cooperatively with other groups as far as it makes sense, but we need to try and work our own deal as Australia, Chile and other countries have in the recent past.