Editorial: More nightmare than plan

Friday, July 28, 2006 | 7:46 a.m.

Seeking a Republican immigration policy compromise before November's elections, two lawmakers have unveiled a plan that would allow illegal immigrants to work in the United States but would make them wait up to 17 years to apply for citizenship.

The Washington Post reports that the measure sponsored by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., would take effect only after the government had certified that the U.S. borders have been adequately secured.

The proposal also calls for pressuring the nation's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants to "self-deport" to their home nations within two years of Congress passing the measure. The two-year period is to give federal officials time to secure the U.S. borders.

After they leave, immigrants could apply for a new type of visa that would allow them to return to the United States to work, provided they have jobs waiting. The new visas would apply only to people from countries that are members of trade pacts covering Canada, Mexico and Central America.

Immigrants would have to renew the new visa every two years, and after six such renewals could apply for a special five-year visa. Immigrants who stay in the system for its full 17 years could apply for U.S. citizenship without having to leave the country. Those wanting to apply for U.S. citizenship sooner would have to return to their home countries and apply from there, waiting an untold amount of time for processing of such requests.

This plan certainly is different from the Republican hard-liners' approach of securing the borders and making felons of all of those here illegally, but it is hardly a compromise worth pursuing.

Forcing people who have established families, careers and homes here to face deportation every two years for what could amount to their offspring's entire childhoods lacks compassion. And the voluntary "self-deportation" of 11 million people, along with the astonishing 17-year wait for citizenship, would be an administrative nightmare.