A look at the current politics surrounding immigration suggest that Democrats are facing as much conflicting internal pressures from the current border crisis as Republicans face from their own base when it comes to “amnesty,” or legalizing illegal immigrants. President Obama is caught between his base, which has been pushing him to treat the migrants as refugees and settle them in the country, and the majority of voters, who believe that most should be returned to their home countries.

The divide was exemplified by Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a prospective 2016 presidential candidate, who criticized the administration from the left for speeding up the deportation process. He said the president was “summarily send[ing] children to death” by forcing them to return home. (The White House has angrily fired back by selectively leaking unfavorable details from a meeting with the governor.) From the middle, border-district Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat, has attacked the president for being negligent in handling the crisis, even calling it Obama’s Katrina moment. He’s introduced legislation with GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas designed to speed up the deportation process for kids detained at the border.

At the same time, a batch of new NBC/Marist battleground Senate polls suggest that paving a path for citizenship for illegal immigrants—the major component of immigration reform—is hardly the slam dunk that supporters often claim.