we can bring them out of the shadow economy and into the real economy.
We could give them the carrot of being able to join our Social Security if they pay into it for a certain number of years AND become US citizens. We could also attach important strings to make up for them not coming through the legal immigration system in the first place.
We could also make it so they could not work here and then retire in another country so most of that Social Security would stay in our country. Say that they had to stay in this country at least 7 months out of the year once they retired and we would issue it via a debit account that could only be in a US bank and it's US bank branches. Now if they wanted to rent a place here, pick up their mail at that location and then after getting the cash send some overseas that would be fine. We cannot stop all of the funds all the time, just make it hard enough that most will follow along. We would send them regular mail that could not be forwarded and would stop payments if they did not sign and return the forms sent. Also we could change the code they have to give the bank via letter so had to get their mail and read it to get their money. We would have to set up a system so if there were a mistake made it could be corrected fast of course.
When they first come out of the shadow and admitted they were here illegally there would be strict requirements they would need to go through like, learn to speak fluent English and then go through the requirements legal immigrants go through. We could make the time it would take to get citizenship shorter if they would serve in the US military but they could not have any type of security clearance or access to secure information until after they had become a US citizen and passed the standard required background and security checks.
We could also require some amount of volunteer community service before they could become a citizen so they understand how we in America help each other. That way Americans who are against making them citizens would be more inclined to accept this way of solving the problem. We could let faith based charity service count so churches and religious organizations could become a help, not be against the plan. Things like working with the YWCA, Salvation Army, Knights of Columbus, YMCA, Shriners, The Job Corp etc. This is just an example list and many more would be included. They would have to be doing work outside the organization not inside. For example a church couldn't hire them as a Gardner but could let them work in soup kitchen for the poor. Also organizations couldn't just help this group but for example if they had a community outreach that helped the homeless only some of the people helping could be the aliens in the program.
Companies could also participate by letting their employees in the program work at a registered charity for a few hours a week instead of their job while being paid by their company. The company would get a tax break maybe or something that would make it a thing companies would want to do. Maybe the people would be allowed to wear cloths with that companies advertizing on it for example.
We would also make sure it was easier to be in a country and apply for entry with a route to citizenship than sneaking in and declaring you are here. Also if someone is here illegally and gets caught they wouldn't be allowed to use this method to get citizenship so that would be another way to get people to come forward.
I'm sure I've not even touched the surface about ways to make this work for everyone. I welcome your input and ideas.