The repubs could prevent anything from happening all by themselves, such are their own divisions.

The dems can compromise and still have a campaign issue. Images and sounds of distressed kids are built for political ads, and I'm sure you'll see plenty. That can be true even if a compromise happens, but it won't. This is what I'd do, very generally, and I'm more with the dems on immigration, which tbh I think does much more good than harm to the country, but I understand those who voted for my beloved president disagree with me:

Things I favor:

1) legal status for group known as "Dreamers"
2) legislative end to family separations - and I want a path to reuniting those who've already been separated (I saw a report yesterday claiming that adults have been deported with their kids still in some undisclosed location in the US, no contact, no plan to reunite them. That meets the definition of pure evil in my book, if true. You broke the law - you have sacrificed your offspring!).

Things I oppose but would give in on:

1) funding for the stupid orange wall
2) some restrictions of legal immigration, although I'd prefer to greatly expand that in exchange for the wall and 0 tolerance.

Then, I'd focus on winning at the ballot box, hopefully framing the actual problem more based on reality than Trump's fear mongering demagoguery.