US News

Senate foes unite on citizenship path for illegals

WASHINGTON — Two senators on opposite sides of the aisle are proposing changes to the immigration laws that would include a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants now in the United States.

New York Democrat Charles Schumer and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, who promoted similar proposals on separate Sunday news shows, said that no path to citizenship would be available until the country’s borders were secure. Only then could those in the United States without authorization “come out of the shadows, get biometrically identified, start paying taxes, pay a fine for the law they broke,” Graham told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Schumer told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he and Graham have resumed talks on immigration policy and have crafted a “detailed blueprint on immigration reform” that has “the real potential for bipartisan support.”