Senators Offer Plan for Immigration Reform - WSAV: News, Weather, and Sports for Savannah, GA

Senators Offer Plan for Immigration Reform

(Savannah, GA) Miguel Camacho from the Georgia Democratic Party spent Monday afternoon trying to learn more about the comprehensive immigration plan released by a group of senators. First, the news of the day for Camacho is that it's a bi-partisan group. The republican side includes Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Marco Rubio. Camacho says since the November election, everyone has realized that Latinos especially are becoming an important voting block. He says it's no surprise that now republicans are joining in to provide immigration reform that may assist millions of illegal immigrants who now call the United States home.

"I think that now that we've just passed over a national election, we're fresh from a national election, if there was ever a time to try to make something reasonable work, now is the time. Because the rhetoric on a national election cycle is high, fever pitched. Now is the time for something to get done, we have that window of opportunity," said Camacho.

Key components of the plan are:

1) A path to citizenship for about 11-million illegal immigrants

2) Creating a more effective ways for employers to verify that someone does have the right to work here

3) More border security and more border security.

4) A guest worker program (which could especially help states like Georgia

"A good outcome when it's all said and done would be a process where we can discover who's in the shadows here, can we get them out of the shadows, make them legally documented workers, that's one step," says Camacho. "And then there's also another step, a pathway to citizenship, those are two different things. Most everybody thinks we're talking about taking 11 million people and making them all citizens. Everyone does not want to be an American citizens, they just want to be able to work legally here."

Camacho says that's why a guest worker program could be so instrumental in helping to solve issues for many people. Like others, he wants to learn details of the plan. But President Obama has indicated he would support many parts of it.