Paul Ryan: 'Probationary' Visas for Illegals, 15-Year Wait for Citizenship

Paul Ryan: 'Probationary' Visas for Illegals, 15-Year Wait for Citizenship

on Sat, 27 Jul 2013

House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) said Friday that House GOP leadership’s forthcoming immigration plan includes amnesty for all illegal immigrants and a 15-year waiting period for citizenship.

In his remarks to a Racine, WI, town hall, Ryanlaid out the House GOP’s plan to try to “fix” the Senate’s legislation, starting with a series of votes he said would come in October on a “border security bill, we're going to vote on an interior enforcement bill, like the workplace verification and the visa tracking. We're going to vote on a legal immigration bill for visas, for agricultural workers, for skilled workers."

However, Ryan also said the House GOP leadership is working on a plan for amnesty, just like the Senate.

“We're going to vote on a bill to legalize people who are undocumented,” Ryan said, while laying out how all illegal immigrants in America would get what he described as “probationary status” for 15 years.

“Under such a plan, those who are here illegally would have to wait a minimum of 15 years to gain citizenship, two years longer than the Senate version of immigration reform,” theMilwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported. “But they would be eligible to receive a ‘probationary visa,’ Ryan said.”

Ryan justified such a move by saying he wanted to give illegal immigrants a chance in America but did not want them to get ahead of legal immigrants.

"We want to give people an ability to come out of the shadows and get themselves right with the law," he said.

"We want to make sure we're fair to the legal immigrant," Ryan added. "We want to make sure the law does not reward people for quote, unquote, cutting in line. We want to make sure that that person who came here legally in the first place who waited patiently, that they're respected by being at the front of the line."