President Barack Obama’s unilateral amnesty will quickly add as many foreign workers to the nation’s legal labor force as the total number of new jobs created by his economy since 2009.
The plans, expected to be announced late Nov. 20, will distribute five million work permits to illegal immigrants, and also create a new inflow of foreign college graduates for prestigious salaried jobs, according to press reports.
Obama has already provided or promised almost one million extra work permits to foreigners, while his economy has only added six million jobs since 2009.
Under the president’s new amnesty plan, “up to four million undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States for at least five years can apply. … An additional one million people will get protection from deportation through other parts of the president’s plan,” according to a Nov. 19 report in The New York Times.
The five million total was attributed to “people briefed on his plans,” the Times reports.
The five million work permits will add to Obama’s prior giveaways, which have provided work permits to almost one million foreigners.
Since 2009, the U.S. economy has added only six million jobs, according to the International Monetary Fund.
The total number of jobs rose from 139,894,000 in 2009, to 145,871,000 in 2014, according to the IMF. That’s an increase of 5,977,000 jobs in five years.
Obama’s administration claims it has helped create 10 million jobs. If so, he is giving out one work permit for every two jobs created since his inauguration.
Not all the five million illegal immigrants who get permits will work, and many are already working under fake names or for cash. However, their new work permits will allow them to compete for jobs now held or sought by blue-collar Americans, including the many African-Americans and Latinos who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012.
Polls show that the public is hostile to the amnesty plan and want Obama to work with Congress on immigration.
Currently, less than one percent of the nation’s population of 12 million illegal immigrants are repatriated each year. Obama’s policy will likely shrink the repatriations, while providing millions with work permits.
Obama’s total of six million extra work permits does not include the normal inflow of legal immigrants.
Each year, the nation accepts one million new immigrants, or roughly five million since 2009. That total includes roughly 3.5 million working-age immigrants, which is slightly less than the number of Americans — 4.3 million — who turn 18 each year.
Also, companies annually hire roughly 450,000 blue-collar guest workers and roughly 200,000 white-collar guest workers. Most of these guest workers stay for less than a year, but many stay for six years.
That current population of roughly 600,000 foreign graduates is expected to increase, if, as reported, Obama’s plan allows American universities to offer green cards to foreign tuition-paying students who will then compete for the well-paying jobs or the prestigious jobs sought by the offspring of the nation’s influential upper middle class.
Each year, roughly 4.3 million Americans join the workforce in search of good jobs. That total includes roughly 800,000 Americans with expensive degrees in business, engineering, medicine, technology and architecture.
At least nine million Americans are unemployed, and at least seven million have given up looking for work. Employment rates among African-Americans and Latinos are lower than rates for whites and Asians.
Since 2000, the number of native-born Americans with jobs has stalled, despite a growing population of working-age native-born Americans.
The surplus of domestic and foreign job-seekers also helps ensure that U.S. median wages have flat-lined since 2000. Economists — including Obama’s top economic adviser — say that wages stall when the labor supply is larger than the supply of new jobs.
But if the labor market tightens because the number of job-seekers is fewer than than number of new jobs, the wages will rise in the tight labor market. For example, in the late 1990s, even lower-skilled people saw their wages increase because the labor supply grew slower than the Internet-boosted job market.
That relationship, however, is shifted by technology, which creates and eliminates jobs for Americans.
Obama has already provided or promised almost one million work permits to foreigners since 2011.
Since June 2012, Obama used the legally questionable Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals program to give work permits to almost 600,000 illegal immigrants. That DACA number may go above 1.5 million.
In May 2014, Obama’s deputies announced they would provide work permits to 100,000 spouses of university-trained guest workers used by brand-name companies.
In October 2014, his deputies announced they would accelerate the paperwork for 110,000 would-be Haitian immigrants, allowing them to begin working in the United States long before they were due to get green cards.
Since 2011, Obama has allowed roughly 180,000 migrants from Central American to cross the border and apply for green cards.
Despite the administration’s focus on “unaccompanied children,” only about a third of the Central American inflow consisted of school-age kids. The majority were working-age youths and adults, all of whom can apply for work-permits while their legal causes slowly work their way through the courts.
