NRO The Corner

10-Year Work Permits for Millions
December 8, 2010
By Mark Krikorian

Roy Beck of Numbers USA lays out the jobs-related implications of the DREAM Act in a way I hadn’t really considered:

When the House and Senate (presumably) vote this afternoon, I think it is important to frame the issue in terms of giving out millions of additional 10-year work permits.

You see, even people who don’t qualify in the first place or who do qualify for the provisional amnesty but never meet the educational criteria later — all of them can get a 10-year work permit from the start.

So, at a time of nearly 10 percent unemployment, we’re talking about giving the right to compete with American and legal-immigrant workers to maybe 2 million people who legitimately would qualify under DREAM, plus maybe another couple of million who appear to be in the right age range to lie plausibly to get the 10-year conditional status. And after 10 years, then what?:

At the end of 10 years, illegal aliens who have not compiled two years of college or military would finally lose the right to compete legally with unemployed Americans for a job.

But they also would have sunk 10 more years of roots into their communities, building up an even bigger claim that it would be a hardship to be forced to leave this country. In addition, their advocates in the open-borders groups can say that they aren’t really illegal aliens since they have just spent 10 years living and working as legal residents.

And it’s not just that they’d be able to claim such hardship in MSM sob stories:

Fortunately for them, the DREAM amnesty allows those who fail to meet any of the criteria after 10 years to file a claim of hardship. The US Citizenship & Immigration Services agency is given the right to issue waivers and allow these illegal aliens to stay. By the way, they can get a waiver if the hardship is to them, or if it would be to a spouse, one of their children or one of their parents.

In the end, it is not only the 2 million potential qualified opening applicants but millions of potential fraudulent applicants who will get 10 years of legal competition against unemployed Americans. The only way the frauds can lose their work permit is if the government brings individualized cases to prove that they lied on the applications. Want to guess how many of the millions of fraud cases the government would have time to investigate and prosecute — one by one?

Congress needs to finally drive a stake through the heart of the amnesty issue today, so we get about the work of putting in place the tools (like E-Verify and Secure Communities and exit tracking) to continue shrinking the illegal-immigrant population. HERE