Senate draft: Non-immigrant naturalization takes 13 years

Senate draft: Non-immigrant naturalization takes 13 years Sources familiar with the Senate immigration reform negotiations said that according to the bill proposed by the eight-member group, 11 million non-citizens in the United States...

Sources familiar with the Senate immigration reform negotiations said that under the bill proposed by the eight-member panel, the 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States would have to wait a full 10 years to get a green card, but they could then naturalize in about three years.

According to the New York Times, the two waiting times combined mean that undocumented workers need to wait 13 years to naturalize. This also coincides with the waiting time for Obama's draft plan to provide a path to naturalization for illegal immigrants.

The new arrangement will shorten the waiting time for permanent residents to naturalize from 5 years to 3 years. But in an effort to win Republican support, it also extended the waiting time for illegal immigrants to get permission to work permanently in the United States from eight to 10 years.

Such a compromise would give both sides something to brag about: Republicans could claim they extend the time it takes for illegal immigrants to get green cards, while Democrats could say undocumented workers can speed up the process of naturalization.

Kevin Appleby, director of immigration policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Cardinals, said this is an unusual arrangement, but it is the same as the naturalization time in the government plan. Most importantly, it eliminated the permanent underclass and guaranteed that all people would eventually have the opportunity to become citizens.

The New York Times said that negotiations between senators have apparently accelerated in recent days as they try to achieve the goal of announcing a comprehensive immigration reform bill in early April. Senators from both parties and their catalogs held hours of talks Thursday to try to overcome obstacles.

But obstacles that remain include Republicans' concerns that three years of naturalization could allow illegal immigrants to naturalize faster than legal immigrants. One solution is to reduce the waiting time for naturalization to three years for everyone.

We cannot create a system where illegal immigrants become naturalized faster than legal immigrants, a Republican dignitary said. Republicans insist they cannot offer a special path to citizenship.

Senators from both parties remain divided on a host of other major issues, including establishing a guest worker program for low-skilled workers; establishing a better system for companies to verify immigration status; who has the authority to declare border security; and how to revise rules for prioritizing family-based immigration.