Senator Mel Martinez and "Earned Citizenship"

From a CNN Report:

"GOP senators offer immigration plan" --- April 05, 2006

Supporters call it "earned citizenship."

While the McCain-Kennedy plan would apply equally to all immigrants who arrived in the United States before January 2004,

Moderate-Pragmatic GOP members Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Mel Martinez offered an immigration bill that would divide the illegal immigration population into three groups.

Those who have arrived after January 2004 would be expelled from the country.

Those who have arrived between January 2002 and 2004 would be allowed to apply for citizenship following a three-year waiting period.

"Neither plan offers legalization to immigrants who have entered the country illegally since January 2004."

I supported the Hagel-Martinez bill's strategy of dividing the entire population of illegal immigrants into three distinct categories. This is a pragmatic compromise to the just, but unworkable option of expelling every illegal immigrant; and this is a moral alternative to granting a grand amnesty to every illegal immigrant in the country.

"The estimated 3 million illegal immigrants who have been in the country two to five years would have to go to one of 16 designated points of entry within the next three years and apply to stay legally as a temporary worker. But they would be given no guarantee of getting permanent residency or citizenship."

Guest worker permits are unacceptable in theory, and unreliable in practice. Why expect a group of people to work in a country yet not permit them to eventually live there? A similar program has created a permanent underclass of inhabitants in Europe who have no connection to the country, therefore see no reason to obey the laws of their host nation.

However, per Hagel-Martinez, directing a selected class of immigrants to follow the law, get in line, and pay the fine to become citizens is an acceptable alternative to expelling eleven million people, a conservative estimate for the number of illegal immigrants currently in the United States.

Anyone who has been in this country for longer than five year would be granted citizenship, provided they pay the requisite fees and fines. Those illegal immigrants who refuse to turn themselves in to pay the necessary fines would be automatically deported, regardless of the amount of time that they or their families have lived in the United States.