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I posted this comment to dirtboy on a similar thread:

If the only law an illegal has broken in a couple of decades or more was coming here a couple of decades or more ago AND they've been good, established, law abiding, tax paying members of the community ever since, then figure out a way to make them pay for breaking the law decades ago and leave them be.

Those people have shown by how they have lived their lives that they are worthy enough to be here, but they are the only exception.

By all means, use every legal pressure (follow the law!) available to make all those here illegally self deport and most certainly will. And if they don't, follow the law and make it happen for them.

However, there needs to be some option for those who fit the above criteria, but do NOT grant any of them amnesty and give them citizenship and thus reward them for what they've done.

Instead, perhaps they could earn a limited citizenship, something like that of convicted felons who have served their sentence?

But, as much as we might like to do it, rounding them all up and automatically booting them all out, no exceptions, isn't going to happen.

The proponents of amnesty are wont to create the false choice between a blanket amnesty and mass deportation of 12 to 20 million illegal aliens. In reality, we have other choices and alternatives that don’t reward people who have broken our laws with the right to stay and work here and an eventual path to citizenship. The 12 to 20 million illegal aliens did not enter this country overnight and they will not leave overnight. Attrition through enforcement works.

These law-abiding illegals have broken multiple laws besides entering this country illegally flaunting our laws. The lawbreakers have probably committed ID theft, worked illegally, tax evasion, drving without a license, used invalid or stolen SSNs, etc. They are really felons and should be treated as such.

Candidates who respond that we should deport “criminal” illegal aliens and that “undocumented workers who play by the rules” should have their status regularized in some way by the federal government, i.e., pay a fine, learn English, and get to the back of the line on a earned path to citizenship are supporters of amnesty. Trying to create two classes of illegal aliens is a distinction without a difference, except if you are intent on treating them differently, i.e., providing one group with an amnesty.