This originally appeared at NewsJunkiePost.com (03/25/2010) as part of Douglas Rivlin’s Immigration Thursday’s column and was cross posted at AlterNet.org.

There are number of illuminating moments in the HBO Documentary “The Senators’ Bargain” that aired Wednesday night on HBO2 (and airs Friday at 6 p.m. ET on HBO Latino and is available on HBO On-Demand; see a trailer here).  The documentary looks behind the scenes at the fight in the U.S. Senate in 2007 for comprehensive immigration reform legislation and focuses especially on Senator Ted Kennedy and his staff.  Among the remarkable moments are a floor speech by Sen. Trent Lott (of all people) imploring his colleagues to buckle down and pass an immigration bill that – while far from perfect – begins to address the problems with the current system (sound familiar?) and a showdown in Sen. Robert Menendez’ office the day before the vote where advocates make their case for his “yea” vote on cloture to move the bill forward.

But there is one scene that sums up the long and short of the immigration issue as it played out in 2007 and as it plays out today (and as it has throughout the history of the United States).  Frank Sharry, one of the advocates fighting for the bill is shown speaking to a group of Hispanic evangelical leaders in a hotel meeting room in D.C.  He addresses the crowd in Spanish and responds to a question about why there are so many negative and hurtful things said about the Latino community in the context of the immigration debate. …