Immigration Reality: Illegal immigrants can face long, costly road to citizenship

The long, hard path to becoming a legal immigrant.

Illegal immigrants can face long, costly road to citizenship: "One million permanent visas are handed out from the federal government every year, says Paul Balducci, an immigration attorney in Augusta, Georgia, but ... it's not enough to fix the immigration problem.

'There's far more demand for visa numbers than there are numbers available,' adds Balducci.

So how do you become one of the lucky ones? 'Before you can become a U.S. citizen, you first have to become a permanent resident of the United States and in order to become a permanent resident, you have to be sponsored by either a close family member or an employer,' Balducci says. 'Once that petition is approved, you still have to wait for a visa number to become available which could take 8, 9 or 10 years.'

But if a person is already living in the country illegally, Balducci says it's much tougher to get approved.

'If you entered illegally, even if you have someone to sponsor you, you're going to have to leave the United States and it's going to be a difficult process to get back,' adds Balducci. 'They will have to leave the United States in order to finish their paperwork in order to become a permanent resident. They cannot return to the U.S. for up to 10 years,' he explains."