The fifth and final step is to provide a path to legal status to undocumented immigrants. Again, after the first three steps are executed and not before President Barack Obama has left office, the government should provide legal status to undocumented immigrants. They would be allowed to remain and live in the U.S., but they will not have a special path to citizenship.

This does not mean that we would close the door to citizenship to them, but we would require them, if they want to naturalize, to get in the back of the line and follow the process under current law to acquire lawful permanent residency and citizenship.

As this Congress decides to move forward, however, they should not feel that they have only two options: President Obama’s amnesty, on one hand, or Mitt Romney’s self-deportation, on the other. There is a third way, a conservative way, to approach immigration that is based on the rule of law and on the realization that immigration is good for the country and for our economy.