Immigration reform was never going to win Hispanic votes regardless of the strcuture. The game was always going to be about whether or not the GOP can sell the Hispanic community or at least a significant minority (40% or so) on some form of conservative or conservative leaning governing agenda.
Since a good chunk of this agenda has been anti-Hispanic prejudice, not much chance. Immigration reform is essential, since it is taking the poison out. Without passing it Republicans will never be able to convince anyone that they do not hate all those from down South (Cubans and some other whites excepted). And nobody ever listens those who hate them.
This is even abstracting from the fact that many, if not most of those you are planning to be doing the selling to, have close relatives and friends illegally in the US .
I think the GOP needs to pass immigration reform, just so it doesn't keep resurfacing nationally. Every time that it does, it gives the GOP's anti-immigration wing a chance to let loose a bunch of xenophobic comments. The policy barely matters. When Republicans talk about self-deportation and characterizing immigration as a cultural threat and the millions of giant calved Mexican drug smugglers, it makes the GOP seem, rightly or wrongly, like a whites only party.
