The U.S. Senate is expected to vote on an immigration reform bill later this week. Despite bipartisan support in the Senate and President Bush's endorsement, the measure is facing stiff opposition.

In May, an unusual liberal-conservative coalition of senators announced the compromise, which combines tighter border security, stronger enforcement against companies that hire illegals, a guest-worker program and a program giving temporary legal status to millions of unlawful immigrants.

The bill would allow illegal immigrants to obtain legal residency by paying a $5,000 fine (for a family of five) and apply for a special Z visa -- which would be renewable for the holder's lifetime and allow free movement back and forth over the border.

To critics, the measure smacks of amnesty, allowing people who entered the country illegally to profit from their misdeed while encouraging others to make a run for the border to get in on the deal, as happened in the past.

The opposition could derail the bill, which would mean that the immigration problem would remain unresolved indefinitely. This would be bad for the nation, in our view. It is time to compromise and move forward. When Benjamin Franklin endorsed the Constitution after the contentious convention of 1787, he said it was "because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best." Perhaps the same could be said of the immigration bill.

To be sure, the bill is not perfect, but it is on the right track. A couple of key amendments would help.

Foremost is the matter of treating all illegal immigrants the same way. We believe they should receive different benefits based upon the amount of time they've been in the country.

Anyone who has crossed the border recently, say in the past two or three years, should not receive instant legal status. On the contrary, he should be deprived of employment and forced to go back to the land of his birth. Once there he would apply for a green card or work permit just like everyone else on the planet.

Short-time opportunists should not be allowed to buy their way to the head of the line -- elbowing in front of people who play by the rules. After all, the United States is in a position to lure the best and brightest from around the globe to our shores. We have our pick of the litter. We should not squander that opportunity by giving special privileges to those who deserve them least -- particularly by linking family members not currently in the country to the same easy program.

There is another group of immigrants, however, who have more than earned the privileges outlined in the bipartisan bill. We're talking about people who have been in this country for many years, say a decade or more. Many families, technically illegal, are in their third generation in America. Such people deserve a relatively easy path to legal residency, and even citizenship.

The nation has approved of their presence by looking the other way for decades, collecting their taxes and taking their Social Security payments (pegged by some at $6-7 billion a year) with no intention to pay anything back. They do the work that Americans can't, or won't, do.

We have done little or nothing to remove these individuals from the country. Whyfi Because we need them as much as they need us. A growing economy requires a growing labor pool. And with natural population growth at zero since at least 1970, labor to fuel the American economy must be found somewhere else. It must be imported.

Add it all up and we find that the nation has tacitly endorsed the presence of millions of long-term illegal immigrants for decades. These people have become de facto citizens. They are the most deserving of fast tracks to legal status, with or without fines.

For them, the Z visa makes sense. It recognizes their long-term contributions to American society while satisfying the demand of justice through fines and other steps. For them, it's not a question of amnesty but of giving them what they have already earned.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A5.