Immigration Reform News 2013: Wait for Citizenship Likely to Be 13 Years if Senate Bill is Unchanged

Undocumented immigrants pinning their hopes on the path to citizenship outlined in the Senate's bipartisan immigration reform bill may want to lower their expectations. The wait will be long.

If the bill eventually becomes law, undocumented immigrants will still need to wait eight years before being eligible for a green card. In the meantime, though, they will be able to work legally in the country, but they will need to pay back taxes, as well as fines that could cost thousands of dollars.

After five years with a green card, they will then be able to apply for citizenship, a total wait of 13 years, at the earliest, assuming that everything goes according to plan.

Current law dictates that undocumented immigrants who want to apply for U.S. citizenship must return to their countries of origin and wait for a decade before being eligible to apply for a green card. That is untenable for many immigrants, either because of monetary costs, or because they cannot leave their families and businesses in the United States for 10 years to return to a country where they may no longer have any connections, not to mention a job or a place to live.

Many undocumented immigrants left countries with authoritarian regimes or areas run by dangerous criminals, but asylum is fickle and many who try to come to the United States legally are turned away.

So the new immigration bill is an improvement over the current system, but that's not saying much. In addition, undocumented immigrants who entered the country after 2011 will not be eligible for the new path to citizenship, though it is currently unclear how the government plans to determine the entry date of a person who has no official papers. There seems to be no incentive to tell the truth if you haven't been in the country since 2011.

The details of the bill must still make it through the Senate and the House before the president can sign it into law, so much could change in the coming weeks or months.