Even while President Barack Obama prepares to block deportation and issue work permits for up to five million illegal aliens by executive action, the administration quietly has handed out over 5.46 million work permits to foreign nationals in the last five years.
The shocking news comes from documents provided under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), whose director of policy studies, Jessica Vaughan, told
the Daily Caller, "The executive branch is operating a huge parallel work-authorization system outside the bounds of the (immigration) laws and limits written by Congress, which inevitably reduces job opportunities for Americans."
"The true magnitude of how often he (Obama) has evaded the limits set by Congress on foreign workers has never been known until now.
"If Congress wants to take back control of our immigration system, it needs to control the issuance of work permits, which have been the vehicle for Obama to get around the limits on immigration and work visas imposed by Congress."
Data the CIS received from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency (USCIS) shows that 982,000 of the permits were issued to "illegal immigrants and other foreign nationals unqualified for admission, most of whom crossed the border without inspection,"
National Review reports.
"I was astonished at the huge number of work permits that are being issued by the Obama administration outside the legal immigration system through executive discretion, especially at a time of high unemployment and stagnant wages," Vaughan told National Review. "Besides the effect on the American worker, it encourages and rewards more illegal immigration."
The CIS report states that 1.8 million work permits were given to aliens with temporary visas or those under the Visa Waiver Program, including 1.2 million with a visa status for which work authorization is not permitted, including 470,000 to aliens with tourist visas, 532,000 to foreign students and 156,000 to dependents of foreign students and guest workers.
Work permits were issued to aliens with permanent status leading to a green card, primarily refugees, 418,000, those engaged to U.S. citizens, 164,000, and approved asylum applicants, 174,000.
Of the 982,000 issued, 957,000 went to aliens who crossed the border illegally, and 1,200 were given to "aliens who were denied asylum, who were suspected of using fraudulent documents, were stowaways or were refused at a port of entry," the report states.
The report notes that these are all new work permits, not renewals or replacement cards.
The report, CIS states, helps to explain why all of the net gains in employment since 2007 have gone to "immigrants, both legal and illegal," while "fewer native-born Americans are working today than were at the end of 2007,"
National Review reports. The number of working native-both Americans has decreased by 1.45 million since 2007 while the number of immigrants working has increased by two million.
CIS also is concerned that the work permit situation can compromise national security.
"Work permits are gateway documents to driver’s licenses and other benefits, and if the government agency issuing them does not know or will not disclose how the bearer arrived in the country, how can others rely on the authenticity of an individual’s identity?" the report asks.
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