FOIA request reveals 'shadow' work permit system not authorized by law adding millions to labor force - Thomas Lifson

by Thomas Lifson

On the one hand, the Obama administration drives down wages, particularly for the lower end of the education spectrum, while on the other hand it blames capitalism and Republicans for the rise in income inequality. It is a hypocritical con game of the highest order.

In a stunning report based on data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, The Center for Immigration Studies has revealed that the Obama Administration has been flooding the United States with work permits not authorized by law for millions of people.

Government data reveal that about 5.5 million new work permits were issued to aliens from 2009 to 2014, above and beyond the number of new green card and temporary worker admissions in those years. This is a huge parallel immigrant work authorization system outside the limits set by Congress that inevitably impacts opportunities for U.S. workers, damages the integrity of the immigration system, and encourages illegal immigration.

On the one hand, the Obama administration drives down wages, particularly for the lower end of the education spectrum, while on the other hand it blames capitalism and Republicans for the rise in income inequality. It is a hypocritical con game of the highest order. Marxist Hegelians call it “heightening the contradictions.” It is not a new game, in fact it is one that communist agitators have used for a century and a half.  But it has never, as far as I know, been played by a United States president before.
Ryan Lovelace notes in NRO’s The Corner:

The remarkable number of work permits granted by the federal government to law-breaking aliens better explains how all net jobs growth since 2007 has gone to immigrants. 

The sheer numbers found by the CIS are spectacular:

Approximately 1.8 million new work permits were issued to aliens with temporary visas or those who entered under the Visa Waiver Program. Of these, about 1.2 million (67 percent) had a visa status for which employment is not authorized by law. For example, more than 470,000 work permits were issued to aliens on tourist visas and 532,000 were issued to foreign students. More than 156,000 were issued to dependents of students and guestworkers, all in categories not authorized for employment by law.
In addition, 963,000 new work permits were issued to aliens who have been granted permanent status or have a status that will lead to a green card. These are primarily refugees (418,000), fiancés of U.S. citizens (164,000), and approved asylum applicants (174,000).
About 982,000 new work permits were issued in this time period to illegal aliens or aliens unqualified for admission. Of these, 957,000 were aliens who crossed the border illegally (Entered Without Inspection). Inexplicably, 1,200 new work permits were issued to aliens who were denied asylum, were suspected of using fraudulent documents, were stowaways, or were refused at a port of entry.
A huge number of work permits, 1.7 million, were issued to aliens whose status was unknown, not recorded by the adjudicator, or not disclosed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency that processes the applications. This should be a concern; 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? It is equally disconcerting if the government does know and chooses not to disclose it.
You can count on the so-called “civil rights” leaders like Sharpton to complete ignore the impact of millions of job entrants on the wages available to African-Americans. And you probably won’t be seeing much on the subject on NBC Nightly News, either.

Thomas Lifson

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