That’s what has to happen and I believe the political reality will coalesce around that idea.
We won’t get fooled a third time. We need to control our borders, but kicking out non-criminal illegals won’t happen. The path to citizenship must be in support of overseas Christian minorities, those with high educations and skills and those who bring $1 million in capital.
Those who are on the path to legal citizenship need to be treated like human beings - standardize and privatize the process. Those who are here illegally go to the end of the line.
We need a tiered approach to citizenship and an elimination of welfare benefits for illegals, green card holders, and newly minted citizens for a decade. That would go a long way toward shoring up entitlements and give that reform time to work.
The illegal immigration problem isn’t just about immigration.
The first mistake that many of the anti-immigrant hot-heads on this forum make is to conflate several different issues into one. Some illegals are violent criminals and/or drug dealers. No question about what should happen to them. Some are welfare queens of one description or another, and some of them also vote illegally, enticed, encouraged and enabled by those who make a living gain political power through expanding the social welfare system. These are not felons, but are an economic drag on the country. Cut them off and toss them out is ok. Then there is a large class who actually turn in honest work doing jobs Americans won't do or cannot do, pay taxes, and pay their own way through life. I would guess that this class is at least 1/3 of illegals and probably more. I really don't think there is any justice in trying to toss these folks out. Maybe you tell them that they never get citizenship, but they can have permanent legal residence so long as they remain law abiding productive citizens.
But the notion that we are just going to round up and toss out 30 Million folks is a fantasy, and not a very Christian fantasy at that.