Thread: OBAMA LAUNCHES 'SECRET' NEW IMMIGRATION SCHEME

WND EXCLUSIVE

OBAMA LAUNCHES 'SECRET' NEW IMMIGRATION SCHEME

11th hour 'rule change' totally bypasses Congress

Published: 49 mins agoimage: http://www.wnd.com/files/2014/06/lhohmann_avatar.jpg
LEO HOHMANN About | Email | Archive

image: http://www.wnd.com/files/2013/11/asylum-seekers.jpg

Asylum seekers such as these could apply for suspension of deportation and receive a work permit under Obama’s proposed new rules, which bypass Congress entirely

In the final hours of 2015 the Obama administration has quietly proposed a host of rule changes that critics say will end up being a bonanza for foreign students and illegal immigrants seeking work in the U.S. while putting a dagger in the hearts of thousands of American workers.

The rules, as proposed by Obama’s Department of Homeland Security, make it easier for employers to hire and retain foreign workers who have not yet received their green cards or “lawful protected resident” status.

The U.S. already hands out approximately 1 million green cards per year, but under the proposed changes those foreigners who apply unsuccessfully for a green card can enter the workforce with a temporary work permit.

The proposed changes, all 181 pages of them, showed up in the Federal Register on New Year’s Eve. They would ease regulations that govern the way work permits are handed out to foreign nationals, including some who enter the U.S. illegally or who come on visas that would not allow them to work.

One of the most pernicious of these new rules, according to immigration-watchdog groups, is the treatment of illegal immigrants who enter the U.S. seeking asylum.

Buried on page 113 of the document is a provision that says “Aliens who have properly filed applications for asylum or withholding of deportation or removal” will automatically be eligible to receive a work permit.
Anyone in the U.S. illegally who has filed an application for a suspension of deportation would be allowed to work legally under these new rules.

“Someone could just show up at the border, file for asylum, and get a work permit — without even having to meet asylum criteria,” said one congressional aide on Capitol Hill.

Another change buried in the document is a proposal to provide work permits to spouses and children of the foreign workers.

Many of the changes would apply to work permits issued to foreign college-graduates who will compete against Americans primarily for white-collar positions. The new rules, which completely bypass Congress, will make foreign graduates cheaper for U.S. employers to hire than many U.S.-born college grads.

One of the more controversial aspects of the rule changes is a proposed automatic renewal of the work permit for 15 categories of foreign nationals. Several of the categories who would benefit from the automatic renewals include persons who entered the U.S. illegally while others may have come legally as a refugee, asylum seeker or one of the myriad temporary visa programs but have not yet received a green card.

The new rules would vastly increase the number of “employment authorization documents,” commonly referred to as a “work permit,” issued to foreign nationals each year.

The EAD or “work permit” allows a foreign national to work in the United States on a temporary basis, typically for two years although the time-frame can vary, and should not be confused with the more permanent “green card.”

It’s unclear how many foreign nationals would be allowed to stay in the country every year under these new rules who otherwise would be forced to leave, but it could run into the tens of thousands, according to critics.

“It’s theoretically not limited except by the number of applications,” said the congressional aide. “Think of it this way: the Obama administration can approve an unlimited number of green card applications, knowing they are in excess of the cap and going into the ‘backlog’ ‎and then they can give everyone EADs, creating a kind of parallel immigration program.”
And here’s the kicker. The administration has already, since 2009, been granting work permits to people who have merely “applied” for asylum, according to research and reports from Jessica Vaughan at the Center for Immigration Studies. This extends that policy, and formalizes it.

“Because neither lawful permanent residents (green card holders) nor temporary work visa holders need a work permit, this amounts to a huge parallel immigrant work authorization system outside the numerical limits and categories set by Congress,” Vaughan writes. “The huge number of work permits being issued above and beyond these limits inevitably reduces opportunities for U.S. workers, damages the integrity of the immigration system, and encourages illegal immigration.”

Approximately 2.1 million work permits were issued to aliens with temporary visas or who entered under the Visa Waiver Program between 2009 and the end of 2014. Of these, about 1.4 million (66 percent) had a visa status for which employment is generally prohibited under the law, except in what are supposed to be rare cases, Vaughan reports. For example, more than 548,000 work permits were issued to aliens on tourist visas and 593,000 were issued to foreign students. More than 213,000 were issued to dependents of students and guest workers — all categories in which the law prohibits employment except in rare circumstances.”

The Hill aide said the rule changes amount to semantical chicanery.

“Ask yourself: why would an asylum ‘applicant’ need a new work permit? How long are they going to be allowed to live and work here before they have even been approved?” he said. “And, if rejected, they will obviously never leave. These are eligibility criteria invented by the administration.”

And all of these inventions showed up in the Federal Register while Congress is away from Washington for the holidays.
There is also a national security aspect to the changes not lost on some observers.

William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration or ALIPAC, said most of these asylum seekers and college grads given work permits will not be properly screened and the result will be chaos.

“Obama and his socialist billionaire backers like George Soros want to attract and import as many people into America as possible before the end of his term to secure their long-range plans to overthrow the American republic from within,” Gheen told WND. “They want more people with views that are foreign to American principles and our Constitution that are also dependent upon the corrupt federal government for their presence and livelihood here. Obama can do these things because Ryan and his 150 RINOs in Congress are funding, protecting, and facilitating Obama’s betrayals of the Constitution and our citizens.”

The purpose of the changes, as stated by Obama’s DHS, is “to provide additional stability and flexibility to employers and workers” who benefit from the employment-based visa programs by “improving job portability” for foreign workers.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/12/obama-lau...hDmdQJu6okS.99

The people's representatives in Washington DC are all GUTLESS!

For God's sake.... we only need 1 representative to start Impeachment process!

May the New Year bring an end to Obama's evil reign beneath the rise of a patriot political army!

W

Obama administration quietly moves to give work permits to an estimated 100,000 foreign college grads

The rule would unchain foreign workers from the employers who sponsored their visas and give them worker permits

As long as they have a job in a similar field, they'll be allowed them to stay in the U.S. until they finish the green card application process

The Department of Homeland Security put the proposed changes to the H-1B visa system in a 181-page document it released on New Year's Eve

President Barack Obama's administration quietly released a proposed rule today that would unchain foreign workers from the employers who sponsored their visas and give them permits allowing them to stay in the U.S. until they finish the green card application process.

Based on the current backlog, the rule would give an estimated 100,000 high-skilled immigrant workers currently in the country on H-1B visas who have applied for green cards but not yet received them the ability to remain in the U.S. indefinitely.

The Department of Homeland Security says the proposed amendments, which the public has 60 days to formally comment on, implements two acts passed more than a decade ago that deal with American Competitiveness and 'clarifies and improves upon longstanding policies.'

But John Miano, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, says that's a ruse.

Before the administration was acting 'under the covers,' Miano said. With this planned change to the immigration system, 'it's right in your face saying, we can do whatever we want.'
'This should be really upsetting,' he said.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle worry that by increasing the number of foreigners approved to work in the U.S., the federal government is undercutting Americans' employment opportunities at home.

Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, a leading advocate of visa limitations, aggressively fought against a provision in the massive government spending bill passed by Congress and signed into the president earlier this month that increased the number of visas for low-wage foreigners.

'If Congress wants to get serious about representing its voters, and winning their trust, it should be begin by moving legislation next year to both end illegal immigration and reduce immigration visas,' he said at the time.

Sessions said, 'Congress should defend the citizens of this country with the same passion as the President defends the citizens of other countries.'

Miano likewise said of the Obama administration, 'American workers lose a job, and they do absolutely nothing. Very warped sense of priorities here.'

The way the system currently works, he explained, foreign college grads who enter the country on H-1B worker visas sponsored by their employer. From there, they can apply for green cards that will allow them to independently and legally live and work in the country for an indefinite period of time.

The visa program creates a pathway to legal residency for foreigners wishing to relocate to America. Current limitations on the number of workers from each country who can apply has created long waiting lines for applicants of some nationalities, specifically India.

By Miano's count, which he admits is open to critique because DHS makes it impossible to ascertain the exact number visa holders and green card applicants, roughly 10,000 Indian workers a year who apply for green cards don't make the cut.

After 10 years, 'if you're in the queue you would go home,' he said.

The proposed rule changes all of that.

The 181-page document, first brought to light by Breitbart News, says the changes would improve 'the ability of U.S. employers to hire and retain high-skilled workers' on the employment-based immigrant visas who 'are waiting to become lawful permanent residents (LPRs), while increasing the ability of such workers to seek promotions, accept lateral positions with current employers, change employers, or pursue other employment options.'

Miano said, 'The objective is to get people who wold go home to stay.'

'These are people who would otherwise leave the job market.'

Supposing the back log of applications goes back a decade, and Miano says it actually goes back longer and he's giving a conservative estimate to account for other factors, 100,000 workers from India alone will now be 'unleashed into the job market.'

And that's just from India, which Miano said accounts for roughly three-quarters of the waiting list.

Of course, DHS' vague reporting means the green card line could also be shorter than that, he acknowledged.

Yet he added, 'Would they go through all this trouble to implement a rule like this to only do 2,000 people?' I don't think so.'

No longer will green card applicants have to stay with the employer who sponsored their entry into the country until they're approved to avoid being sent home.

A legal analysis of the rule produced by Hunton &Williams LLP determined that H-1B visa holders will be granted an unlimited number of three year extensions on their permits until their green card application is either approved or denied.

The law firm's review of the rule also revealed a grace period of 60 days for visa holders to find new jobs if their employment is terminated before they're served papers.

DHS did not return DailyMail.com's request for comment on the matter.

As far as the green card process is concerned, Hunton & Williams says DHS' is proposing 'continuing to allow workers to “port” pending green card processes to new employers' if they meet certain requirement, including one that mandates they must be moving to jobs in the 'same or similar' occupation.

Miano said DHS is trying to make it sound like what its doing is a continuation of a previously established policy. It is to the extent that agencies within it have been taking actions like this for years, 'but they've been trying to keep them under the radar,' he said.

Before the department would make exceptions to immigration rules and say 'it's necessary for us to exercise our authority,' Miano said. It then began creating provisions that its now using as justification to work around a myriad of immigration statutes.

'And now we have this regulation, and it allows huge classes of aliens to work,' he said.

DHS moved to issue worker permits because the green card process is 'choked up,' said Miano. And the new rule 'just makes more of a mess of the immigration system.'

'We're getting all these patches that are making a bigger and bigger mess,' the immigration lawyer said.

Read more: Obama administration quietly moves to give work permits to '100,000 foreign college grads' | Daily Mail Online

Obama Floods The U.S. Job Market With Foreign Competition
12/31/2015

• 
• President Obama gives a thumbs up to visitors during an event on the South Lawn of the White House.
• ((and steals Mr Trump's thumbs up message - surprised he doesn't hold the one forefinger up like the muslim jihadists))

Politics: Skirting Congress once again, President Obama seeks to admit another 100,000 foreigners to work here when jobs are few and labor-market participation is low. Whatever this is, it's not in the interest of U.S. workers.

This time, the president isn't seeking to flood the country with tens of thousands of indigent, border-surging migrants in search of bigger benefits packages.

Instead, he plans to award via executive order work permits to 100,000 foreign college grads (including deportable aliens) to compete with U.S. workers for jobs.

Cui bono? Certainly not the U.S. workers he purports to champion.

Obama's Homeland Security rule, published in the Federal Register on Thursday, amounts to yet another illegal power grab by explicitly treading on Congress' constitutional prerogative to set immigration quotas.

It also comes at a time when 94 million U.S. workers have been unemployed so long they're no longer counted in labor-participation statistics. Some New Year's Day present for millions of discouraged Americans.

The move is especially nefarious not just because it stands as another example of executive overreach but also because foreign workers already have U.S. workers at a disadvantage.

For one thing, they're able to work cheaper. Unlike Americans, most have had free tuition rides from their sponsoring countries and carry no student loan debt. This enables them to tolerate lower wages than American grads saddled with high loan costs that can't be shirked even in bankruptcy court.
The foreigners are also exempt from ObamaCare rules that can add as much as $20,000 in costs per domestic worker for employers struggling to compete in the low-growth economy that Obama has overseen.

In short, Obama's move to bring in highly educated foreign labor hurts U.S. white-collar workers as much as the border surge undermined blue-collar workers.

Which raises the question of what the president really has in mind.

It may simply be a failure of strategy, the lack of a capacity to think three steps ahead. But more likely, it's the result of a European Union-style effort to change the face of America — rendering its cultural norms null amid the left's moral relativism through the import of chaotic newcomers from around the world.

Indeed, Sweden, once known as perhaps the most generous recipient of foreign migrants, has recently found the cost too high. It's rolling up the welcome mat, discouraging further migration and cutting back welfare.

Obama still seems to cling to the EU's illusion and the plan to dilute American culture. It won't work the way he thinks it will. Outsourcing American jobs, even inside the country, is no more attractive than outsourcing them abroad.

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