Not really—he had been saying they had to make a visit home in order for us to legalize them. I’m not sure we’ll know the details of his position until he formally announces it in the first week of September.
That was known as "touch back" and originated in the immigration reform bill authored by Cornyn and Kyl in 2005. Illegals cannot be amnestied to guest worker or onto the path, but if the illegal touched back, he could come back as either. There was not a time frame associated with touch back mentioned in the legislation, but it was widely accepted the time to touch back would be much shorter for those who would come back as guest workers and much longer for those coming back with green card(on the path). It takes about 7 years of waiting for an immigrant to get a green card. So bottom line, it was a way to convert illegals into guest workers, which is what the Bush Plan was. It was said at the time that Bush and Rove actually wrote the Cornyn-Kyl legislation as Bush's fall back position if the Bush Plan failed.
Touch Back would then come back again in 2007 when Congress made their last failed attempt at Immigration reform but in that context Touch Back centers would be established in key places around the US to which the illegals could go rather than to their country of origin.