Even with all the talk of sequestration and other fiscal matters, there are still lots of other issues getting attention on Capitol Hill. Foremost among them: immigration. Last week saw not one but two House subcommittee hearings on immigration matters, and a third is slated for this week. And there were signs of agreement among various witnesses and members of Congress.

The House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security held a hearing Feb. 26 on the H-2A temporary agricultural guestworker visa program. That was followed the next day by a hearing on the federal government's E-Verify employment verification system. Both are issues likely to be dealt with in any comprehensive immigration overhaul legislation that Congress may consider. This week, the same subcommittee will consider issues related to visas for high-skilled workers.

No specific legislative language has been released yet, but draft language of an immigration bill emerged from the White House a few weeks ago. It largely resembled a loose set of proposals released in late January by the "gang of eight" senators currently working on crafting a bill.

The tone of the two hearings last week was notably less rancorous than the first House hearing this year on immigration, during which the witnesses and subcommittee members often disagreed. But witnesses and members largely agreed on several main issues surrounding H-2As and E-Verify. For example, representatives of both employer groups and the United Farm Workers would like to see visa portability worked into any agricultural guestworker proposal, meaning that workers would easily be able to leave one employer to work for another.

As for E-Verify, a witness from the National Immigration Law Center testified mostly about various issues with the program. But even Democratic members of Congress recognized that some form of verification system likely will need to be part of a comprehensive overhaul, though only in conjunction with other changes to immigration law. And a representative of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce discussed how his organization had gone from opposing any mandate on employers to use E-Verify, to supporting one under certain conditions.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), a leading Democratic voice on immigration issues, called the hearing "remarkable because we are talking about employment verification systems in their proper context."

In the past, Gutierrez said, "Republicans have only been willing to discuss E-Verify as a stand-alone issue, isolated from other reforms of our immigration system like legal immigration and legalization." Now, he said, "we are having a much more realistic and fruitful conversation."