Democrats would be happy to have Republican criticism kill Mr. Gingrich's idea. Liberals may advocate the maximalist position of full citizenship rights for illegals, but they're content with the status quo. They know that keeping illegals in limbo works to the political advantage of liberals and Democrats. Republicans ignore this at their own peril.

Mr. Gingrich's idea is crucially different from what was offered to illegals under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. That program, unlike Mr. Gingrich's proposal, provided a direct "path to citizenship" for millions of undocumented immigrants who qualified.

At a time when cosmopolitan elites are devaluing citizenship, conservatives in particular should appreciate the critical distinction between citizenship and mere legal residency, a status that would not afford the beneficiaries voting rights. If Mr. Gingrich's critics have any doubts about this, they should listen to those few on the left who have already criticized the former House speaker for advocating a form of "second-class citizenship."

Liberal activists and Democratic Party leaders understand that illegals are not voters and are therefore not well-situated to press their claims. Neither are the relatives of illegals (about 80% of whom are Latinos) who are citizens. Over the last few decades, Democrats and especially liberal advocacy groups have gotten used to "representing" constituents like these without being accountable to them, because they are relatively quiescent and certainly not well-organized. This is the beneficial status quo to which Democrats have grown accustomed.

Democrats plausibly assume that Latinos will generally vote for them and don't really have anywhere else to go—especially when conservatives demand the mass deportation of illegals. Such calculations are certainly reflected in the way that the Obama administration has managed to completely avoid anything like the comprehensive immigration reform that candidate Obama promised Latinos in 2008.

Undergirding the Democrats' acceptance of the status quo is what no politician dares to say: Being an illegal immigrant in contemporary America is not as onerous as the pervasive rhetoric suggests. Even George W. Bush missed this. Back when he was advocating for a way to bring illegals "out of the shadows," they were not only gainfully employed but in many instances joining labor unions and securing schooling for their kids, who then began demanding in-state tuition at public universities.

In the middle of the last decade, illegals in most major cities demonstrated visibly and loudly against the tougher enforcement measures then being proposed in Congress. And although illegals have never been eligible for Social Security numbers, with the help of the IRS they are eligible for Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers, which during the real-estate boom allowed hundreds of thousands of them to purchase their own homes.

But while life in America may generally be tolerable for most illegals, their situation is hardly enviable and certainly not without anxiety, especially given the persistent threat of deportation. Their advocates understandably seek to dramatize their plight, and the politics of this issue consequently get more and more hyped, especially as the media focus on the inevitable horror stories.

Whatever the plight of individual illegal immigrants, the problem of 11 million of them constitutes a blemish on the body politic that taints us all—and one that certainly won't be healed by the draconian policies most Republican candidates seem to advocate. Mr. Gingrich's proposal, or something like it, could actually address this genuine dilemma while acknowledging the legitimate anxieties that many Americans have about illegal immigration.