Brent Wistrom

Cornelius Peters sits in the lobby of his lawyer’s office. He’s one of the tens of thousands of people who came to southwest Kansas for a tough but good-paying job, overstayed a visa and became part of the sprawling illegal immigration issue that the nation has faced for decades. And now, with six kids, he’s among many immigrants who hope for a bill like the one the Senate has already approved to become law, giving him a shot at legal residency and maybe even citizenship in a decade or so if he has a clean background and pays thousands in fines