There can be no pathway to citizenship for the 12 to 20 million illegals in the US without amnesty.
This talk of doing it legally, and going home and coming back legally is a lot of deceptive nonsense, or a severe display of ignorance. Not saying what Palin means, or doesn’t mean, but...
Nations have immigration quotas and most have far more people applying than will ever be admitted legally. And there are large numbers in line in Mexico and all nations, already far ahead of any illegals who might “get in line”.
Few if any of the illegal aliens would ever become legal by taking a place in line with all those already seeking a legal immigration slot. Saying otherwise is the height of dishonesty or ignorance.
Unless we just gave the home countries of the illegals a one time, big increase in their legal immigration slots, which would be amnesty by any other name.
All this talk of going back and coming legally is nonsense, and could never happen for the overwhelming majority of illegals.
The allocations are almost certainly reduced based upon estimates of illegal immigration, are they not? So if illegal immigration were cut to nearly zero, we could let in a lot more legal aliens. How many people are in queue to enter legally? If we kicked out five million illegals and let in five million people from the queue, what effect would that have on the queue?
That is the current legal pathway to citizenship. Get it?
My limited experience with the general nature of illegal alien mentality leads me to believe that even if a no-questions-asked blanket amnesty was given, relatively few would even walk across the street to pick up their documents.