The holiday season is a traditional time for the president to issue pardons, and in that spirit, George W. Bush would be doing the right thing if he paused this month to remember the families of 11 immigrants who cleared the tables, served the food, and prepared the meals at Windows on the World restaurant. With the stroke of his pen, he can change the lives of some 70 people who lost their loved ones on September 11, 2001, but today are illegal residents in the New York area because their temporary worker status has expired.

They are the second-class victims of our national tragedy. They cannot work, their children cannot attend the colleges they would like, and they cannot travel. “These are good people. They love this country. Their humility and love of this country is enormous,” their lawyer, Debra Steinberg, told us Thursday. She did not want to provide us with her clients’ names, because if she did, the federal government might take action to deport them. But she assured us the families paid taxes as immigrant workers and were well on their way to citizenship before the twin towers were felled by Al Qaeda’s hijackers.

Since 2002, Ms. Steinberg has fought for their cause and has tried everything from pushing Congress to take legislative action to looking for a loophole in the complicated laws that govern citizenship to let these families get on with their lives. She has lined up support from Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki. But all of her efforts so far have not changed that these families still live in legal limbo.

Mr. Bush can change that. He has the power to give these families, through executive order, at least a green card and to allow them to stay here. If their immigration status is not altered, they will celebrate another Christmas in hiding.