Yeah, we in the US have our own (though greatly different and at the same time, the same) issues
That should sound silly, but I do know exactly what you mean. The issue with certain groups having a vested interest in allowing in large numbers of cheap, undemanding labour seems something of a universal theme on both sides of the Atlantic.
Though as you say, there are different ones as well. I don't claim any authority on this, but I have heard that immigrants largely vote in favour of the Democrats, so the Democrats are often in favour of letting more in to therefore accrue more votes, whereas the Republicans are often against it for the same/opposite reason. Is that the case?
That's generally true, yeah, but not the entire story. As you've probably noticed, the Republicans in general have been pretty hostile (alienating even) to immigrants and minority groups, which drives those voting blocs towards the Democrats.
It's good to hear you aren't afraid of discussing it - although, from what very little I'd heard, a lot of the Republican candidates' immigration 'talking points' in the primary debates were basically 'Let's actually apply the laws', or 'Let's deport the illegal immigrants'. You mention pro-amnesty or anti-amnesty, yourself. That personally doesn't seem very radical to me. Would it be acceptable for say, an anti-amnesty politician to start talking about dramatically lowering the legal amount of migrants, or raising entry requirements, or would that be deemed very radical?
The whole amnesty thing may not seem radical, but it's a major point of contention between the Republicans and Democrats (guess which one is anti-amnesty). As for an anti-amnesty politician saying about dramatically lowering the legal amount of migrants or raising entry requirements, that sounds like it would be a Republican position.
The thing is that it's not legal immigration that is the big deal here (in the US), it's dealing with the illegal immigrants and fixing the broken immigration system which makes it harder to immigrate legally than it does illegally. Which both sides admit is a problem, but can't agree on how to fix, so, things get deadlocked and thus hardly anything gets done.