Between the early presidential campaigns, the irresponsible antics of celebrities and baseball playoffs, it seems as though Americans have forgotten an issue which was so hotly debated only months ago.

Illegal immigration is a multi-faceted issue that Congress and the president have been unable to devise a policy to address. Out of the many subtopics that make up the immigration debate (border security, illegal immigrant employer punishments, etc.), one of the most important is: What should be done with undocumented immigrants that live in America?

Two extreme solutions have been presented to answer this problem.

Some people say we should grant them all amnesty, and others say we should deport them all. Giving all undocumented immigrants amnesty only belittles our immigration policy. But attempting to hunt down and deport them is unfeasible. Attempting a massive deportation initiative like that would be very expensive and possibly very inaccurate.

The United States has unsuccessfully tried large deportation policies in the past. In 1954, Operation Wetback (yes, that is the real name) forced thousands of illegal immigrants back to their home country. But along with the thousands of illegal immigrants who were sent back, hundreds of American-born, Latino-looking citizens were sent unjustly. This inaccuracy led to the operation’s cancelation. In addition, this type of policy would be very difficult to execute because illegal immigrants have a tendency to not want to be found.

America needs to adopt a more sensible policy when dealing with illegal immigrants living in America. Taxpaying, law-abiding (not counting the law they broke to enter the country) immigrants should be allowed to pay a fine and work toward their citizenship. I understand that some critics don’t believe undocumented workers will want to step up to pay a fine, but I am sure that not living in constant fear of being deported and working toward your eventual citizenship will be worth more than any monetary fine.

For those who come to America only to work and don’t want citizenship, the government needs to create an accessible guest worker program. This type of program would allow guest workers to receive some form of identification. With this identification, they could be tracked by the places they work (just in case they need to be deported for whatever reason) and it would force employers to pay them minimum wage because they would have to report these workers to the government.

Not to mention, this type of program would allow the United States to tax the incomes of these guest workers. The incentive of higher pay will definitely attract illegal immigrants to this type of program.

What we cannot forget is that our economy needs some of these workers to fill in gaps in certain industries where Americans have chosen not to work. According to the 1990 and 2000 census supplementary survey, reliance on immigrant workers in the agriculture, fishing, mining, construction and manufacturing industries has doubled since 1990. If Americans do decide to return to working in these industries, a guest worker program “levels the playing field.”

Because employers will have to pay both immigrant guest workers and citizens relatively the same amount, they will have to decide whether to hire an immigrant worker (who probably barely speaks English) or hire a highly educated, fluently speaking citizen. Hopefully, the choice is obvious.

Now, there are some people who are automatically deserving of citizenship. People who have married a citizen or given birth to children on American soil (thus making them citizens) should be allowed to stay and receive all the benefits that any other American receives. Regardless of whether a person intended to get married or have a child just to remain in this country, the unity of family should never be compromised or sacrificed.

Above all, we must all remember that the topic we are discussing directly affects people’s lives. They have left their homes in search of a better life. They are only working for what most of us were lucky enough to be born into.