CAIRO, April 6, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – US Republican senators have reached a compromise plan to break an impasse over a controversial anti-immigration bill to determine the fate of some 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, The New York Times reported Thursday, April 6.

The compromise, proposed by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist as an alternative to the contested bill, would classify the undocumented immigrants into three categories depending on their stay in the United States as of January 2004.

Immigrants who have been in the country for at least five years – whose numbers are estimated at seven million - would be eligible citizenship, provided that they remained employed, paid fines and back taxes, and learned English, a senior Republican aide said.

Immigrants with 2-5 year stay in the US would have six months to register and three years to apply for a temporary work visa or some other visa.

Those immigrants, who are numbered at about three million, could legally live in the country during that time but would have to return to a US port of entry to get the visa.

Immigrants who have lived in the US less than two years, estimated at one million, would have to leave.

The anti-immigration bill, passed by the House of Representatives last year, would make it a felony to be in the US without proper papers, and a federal crime to aid illegal immigrants.

It also allows the construction of a 700-mile (1,126-kilometer) wall along much of the US-Mexico border.

The bill has sparked massive protests across the country.

The compromise would be put to vote in the Senate on Friday, April 7. However, senators remain deadlocked over its details.

They warned that if the negotiations collapsed, Congress might fail to take action this year on the issue.

Senator Frist heaped blame on the Democrats, who refused to allow the Republicans to vote on major amendments.

Democratic leader Harry Reid said Democrats would look at the proposal and hoped "it is something that we all could support."

The compromise move came after US President George W. Bush urged the Republicans to reach an agreement on the issue.

"I strongly urge them to come to a conclusion as quickly as possible and pass a comprehensive bill," he said.

Bush, who had made immigration one of his priorities before the 9/11 attacks, has called for "a legal way to match willing foreign workers with willing American employers."

He plans to regularize the status of illegal workers who "fill jobs that Americans will not do."