JURIST - Paper Chase: Senate leaders announce immigration reform bill compromise

[JURIST] US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) [official website], Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) [official website] and eleven other senators announced Thursday that party leaders have hammered out a compromise immigration reform bill [PDF summary; press conference transcript] that both sides hope to submit for a floor vote before Friday. While all the details are yet unfinished, the bill in its basic form will divide the 11 million illegal immigrants currently in the US [JURIST report] into three groups depending on how long they have been living and working in the US:

Those in the country for more than five years may file for legal status without leaving the country if they meet eight criteria, including proficiency in English, an up-to-date federal and state tax history dating back to their first year in the US, and having worked for at least three of the five years.
Those in the country for a period of two and five years must leave the country, where they may apply for a temporary worker visa; their applications will be given priority over all other green card applicants.
Those in the country for less than two years must leave the country, but they may apply for a temporary worker visa at that time.

The compromise is a combination of a solution recently proposed by GOP hardliners [JURIST report] and the so-called Kennedy-McCain immigration plan [Kennedy fact sheet and floor statement] that effectively precludes a bill based on the Kennedy-McCain plan which was endorsed by the Senate Judiciary Committee [JURIST report] last week.

Senate leaders are scrambling to hammer out an acceptable bill text before Friday, as the following two-week Easter recess is considered the final date for major legislation to be considered this term. The Washington Post has more.

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