Immigration Plan Sets 2011 Cutoff Date for Path-to-Legalization

By ASHLEY PARKER
Published: April 12, 2013

WASHINGTON — A plan to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws and provide a path to legalization for the 11 million illegal immigrants already in the country would exclude any immigrants who arrived in the country after Dec. 31, 2011, said three people with knowledge of the negotiations.

That cutoff date could bar hundreds of thousands of immigrants who arrived illegally in the United States in the past 16 months from applying for legal status — and potentially citizenship — under a new immigration bill that a bipartisan group of eight senators expects to roll out next week.

Every bill that legalizes immigrants has a cutoff date for eligibility, in order to discourage a surge of illegal immigrants when they hear that legislation is in the works. News of the cutoff date was first reported by The Associated Press.

Immigration advocates and Democrats in the group had been pushing for the date to be as current as possible — Jan. 1, 2013 — while Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida and a member of the group, had argued for a cutoff even earlier than the date they settled on.

The Dec. 31, 2011, deadline represented a compromise, as well as a big win for Mr. Rubio.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/13/us...lity.html?_r=0