US Senate leader defends path to citizenship

WASHINGTON, May 28 (Reuters) US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist strongly defended today the path to citizenship for illegal immigrants offered in the Senate's immigration reform bill, citing national security concerns.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, the Tennessee Republican said a failure to hold out the hope of citizenship to people living illegally in the United States would encourage the estimated 12 million illegal aliens to ''stay in the shadows.'' ''The reality is you can't just take 12 million people here, millions of whom are fully assimilated into our society ... and send them back'' to their countries of origin, Frist said.

''If the goal is national security, for example ... it is mighty hard to say that we've got 12 million people living out around this country ... and say 'you stay in the shadows, everything will be OK','' Frist said.

''We do, I feel, have to address the 12 million people to bring them out of the shadows.'' Frist declined to rule out a compromise with the US House of Representatives, which passed a bill last year with no provision for legalization, that would strip out the legalization provision. But he argued that the 16-year path to citizenship, which under the Senate bill includes provisions for payment of back taxes and continued employment, was a fair compromise.

''First and foremost you've got to lock down the borders,'' Frist said, but ''we've got to address the fact that we are a magnet here,'' and that employers in construction, hospitality, agriculture and other industries need entry level workers they might not be able to find inside US borders.

While Frist said he did not agree with everything in the Senate bill, he said it represented a good first step toward meaningful reform. ''The U.S. Senate has as a first step, in a comprehensive way, addressed the problem that is economic, that is humanitarian and has to do with our national security.'' REUTERS CH PM2026