The conventional wisdom, which sometimes is neither wise nor conventional, is that Congress will not enact any comprehensive immigration law reform.  In light of this likelihood, several other forces are at work on the immigration reform issue.  The Department of Homeland Security is poised to issue new regulations on how employers must react to notices reporting that employee Social Security numbers and names do not match each other.  Congress is looking at breaking the comprehensive reform bill into several parts, e.g. passing one bill addressing only the issue of whether employers must use the national pilot Social Security number verification system.  A number of states are also considering immigration reform legislation.  One common feature of the state legislation I have heard about includes mandated employer use of the national verification system as well as other items, such as stricter penalties on employers who hire undocumented workers.