jobs

PHOENIX — Raul Reynoso got a bonus when he renewed the federal work permit he received through President Obama's 2012 program granting protection from deportation to undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.

He was expecting a two-year permit. Instead, his new permit doesn't expire for three years, until 2017...

Reynoso is one of more than 100,000 so-called "dreamers" who received three-year work permits under Obama's executive actions on immigration before U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen issued a preliminary injunction temporarily halting the programs in February.

Now Reynoso and the other dreamers are caught a bitter legal dispute over whether the Justice Department intentionally misled the judge by failing to disclose that the government had already started issuing three-year permits to some dreamers.

The revelation, which came to light after Hanen issued his injunction, has further incensed 26 states, including Arizona, that have filed a lawsuit seeking to block Obama's programs aimed at offering protection from deportation to an additional 4 million undocumented immigrants.

Hanen, who oversees the U.S. District Court in Brownsville, Texas, issued the injunction Feb. 16, just before the first of Obama's new programs was set to begin accepting applications on Feb. 18.

Now Reynoso and the others may have to give back the three-year permits if Hanen determines the Obama administration violated the injunction by failing to tell the judge that the government had already started issuing three-year permits before Obama's executive actions were scheduled to start.

That could leave dreamers such as Reynoso to reapply for two-year permits, or it could leave them with no work permits at all.

"Absolutely ... it's something to be concerned about," said Reynoso, who works as an insurance agent and came to the U.S. from Mexico when he was 6.

Obama announced on Nov. 20 that since Congress had failed to pass legislation reforming the nation's immigration system, he was going to use his executive authority to offer protection from deportation and work permits to about 4 million of the 12 million immigrants in the country illegally.

The president's actions included expanding his 2012 program for undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children by removing an age cap that limited the program to those under the age of 31. The actions also created a new program for undocumented parents with children who are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents.

The actions, spelled out in a memo issued by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, also said that effective Nov. 24, everyone approved for protection from deportation would receive three-year work permits instead of the two-year permits issued under the existing 2012 program.

Shortly afterward, Texas and 25 other states filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block Obama's programs from taking effect by arguing they were created illegally.

In the meantime, the government issued three-year work permits to 108,081 people, including Reynoso, from Nov. 24 until the injunction was issued. Those people had applied for protection from deportation under the existing program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

But Hanen didn't find that out until March 3, nearly two weeks after he issued his injunction, when Justice Department lawyers notified him in court papers.

The judge was furious. For weeks leading up to the Feb. 16 injunction, Justice Department lawyers had insisted that the government was not scheduled to start implementing Obama's programs until Feb. 18.

"So, like an idiot, I believed that," Hanen said during a testy court hearing March 19.

Ruling expected soon
Government lawyers contend it was simply an oversight. During the hearing, they told Hanen they were so focused on the start of the new deferred-action programs, they neglected to mention that the government had already started issuing three-year permits under the old program, which was not affected by Hanen's ruling.

But lawyers from the states want to know if the government intentionally withheld the information knowing that once the government started issuing three-year permits, it would be hard "to put the toothpaste back in the tube."

They contend the states have already suffered "irreparable injury" because undocumented immigrants can use their three-year work permits to get driver's licenses that also last for three years. That's because driver's licenses are issued for the length of time a person who receives deferred action can remain lawfully in the U.S.

Hanen is expected to rule any day on a motion filed by the states, asking him to force the Justice Department to turn over documents to determine if the government intentionally misled the court.

The judge said he will also decide whether he will order the government to revoke the three-year permits if he determines the government violated the injunction.

"He could order the government to take back the three-year permits and reissue two-year permits. He could do nothing. Or he could revoke them altogether," said Nora Preciado, a lawyer at the National Immigration Law Center, an advocacy organization in Los Angeles.

Hanen has already denied the Justice Department's request to lift the injunction and allow Obama's programs to go forward until the merits of the case can be decided. As a result, the Justice Department has filed a motion with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to lift Hanen's injunction.

Meanwhile, dreamers across the country are worried about losing their three-year permits...

He came to the U.S. from Mexico when he was 4. He graduated from the University of Houston in 2012 with a degree in political science.

Espinosa is now the executive director of Fiel Houston, a non-profit organization that helps undocumented immigrants apply for deferred action... Read more about 100,000 'dreamers' could lose 3-year work permits

According to a press release from Rep. Bonamici’s office, “They will update constituents on their work in Washington, DC and answer questions and invite suggestions about how to tackle the challenges facing Oregon and America.”

OFIR members, please attend if you can, and ask questions or make comments.  Below the schedule, we include suggestions for subjects to be discussed.

What: Joint town hall in Yamhill County

When: Wednesday, April 1, 2015, 3:30 pm

Where: PCC Newberg Center, Room 115 and 116, 135 Werth Blvd., Newberg, OR 97132

 _______________________________________________________________

What: Joint town hall in Clatsop County

When:  Friday, April 3, 2015, 10:00 am

Where:  Cannon Beach Chamber Community Hall, 207 N Spruce, Cannon Beach, OR 97110

 _______________________________________________________________

What:  Joint town hall in Columbia County

When: Friday, April 3, 2015, 2:00 pm

Where: Vernonia High School Commons, 1000 Missouri Avenue, Vernonia, OR 97064

1.  Talking point suggested by NumbersUSA:

Rep. Bonamici and Sen. Merkley, I am disappointed that you voted to fund the President's executive amnesties. These programs are not only unconstitutional, but will directly harm American workers by providing work permits and social security cards to over 5 million illegal aliens.

2.  Talking point suggested by NumbersUSA:

Rep. Bonamici, Please co-sponsor the following:

The Mulvaney Resolution declaring Obama’s amnesties illegal (H.Con.Res.28)

Rep. Gowdy’s interior enforcement bill (H.R. 1148)

The Legal Workforce Act (H.R. 1147)

Rep. Chaffetz’s asylum reform bill (H.R. 1153)

Protection of Children Act (H.R. 1149)

The Birthright Citizenship Act (H.R. 140)

3.  Other suggestions:

for Sen. Merkley:  Your voting record on reduction of unnecessary worker visas for foreign nationals is F- over your time in the Senate, from 2009-2015.  Citizens are being passed over for jobs in favor of lower-paid foreign workers, in STEM occupations and elsewhere, by companies that exploit weaknesses in the visa programs.  (See here,  here and here.)

for Rep. Bonamici:  Your voting record on reduction of unnecessary worker visas for foreign nationals is F- over your time in Congress, from 2012-2015.  Citizens are being passed over for jobs in favor of lower-paid foreign workers, in STEM occupations and elsewhere, by companies that exploit weaknesses in the visa programs.  (See here,  here and here.)

for both Sen. Merkley and Rep. Bonamici: 

4.  There have been 7 major amnesties passed by Congress from 1986 to 2000, each resulting in ever-increasing numbers of illegal immigrants. Now more, even larger amnesties are being pushed. We need enforcement of the immigration laws, not more amnesties. 

5.  Did you know that between the Censuses of 2000 and 2010, 80% of population growth resulted from immigration (immigrants plus the children of immigrants). The U.S. is already overcrowded.  After more than 4 decades of unprecedentedly high immigration, we need a pause, a moratorium on immigration, or we face a steep decline in the quality of life for everyone. If you are truly concerned about our environment, you should work for major reductions in immigration. Read more about ATTN: Yamhill, Clatsop and Columbia counties - Senator Jeff Merkley and Representative Suzanne Bonamici will hold joint town halls soon.

WASHINGTON, DC — An illegal immigrant male residing in the United States  is more likely to be gainfully employed than a male who is a legal immigrant or U.S.-born citizen, a senior demographer at the Pew Research Center think tank told lawmakers.

In 2012, the most recent year for which data is available, an estimated 91 percent of illegal immigrant males were in the workforce. This compares to 84 percent of legal immigrant men and 79 percent of U.S.-born males, Pew Research Center demographer Jeffrey Passel in written testimony prepared for a March 26 hearing held by the Senate Homeland Security & Government Affairs Committee.

Put in a different way, legal and illegal immigrant males had a better chance to be in the workforce than U.S.-born men in 2012.

For women, the opposite is true. U.S.-born women are more likely to be in the labor force than immigrant females.

“Unauthorized immigrant men of working age [16 years of age and older] are considerably more likely to be in the workforce than U.S.-born men (91% versus 79%),” Passel declared in his written testimony.

“For women, the opposite is true; only 61% of unauthorized immigrant women are in the labor force, compared with 72% of U.S.-born women,” Mr. Passel continued.

The data provided by the Pew demographer shows that U.S.-born females are more likely to be in the workforce than illegal immigrant women (61%) and legal immigrant women (68%), respectively...

Overall, there were an estimated 8.1 million workers who are not legally authorized to work, both men and women, participating in the labor force in 2012 by either working or looking for work. Illegal workers made up about 5.1 percent of the labor force, which translates to nearly one-in-twenty U.S. workers, explained Passel...

“While there have been some modest changes in labor force participation rates over the past 20 years, the participation of unauthorized immigrant men and women, relative to the U.S.-born population and legal immigrants, has remained essentially unchanged since 2005,” he added.

The top three states with the highest share of illegal immigrants participating in the labor force are Nevada (10.2% of the workforce), California (9.4%), and Texas (8.9%), revealed the Pew Research Center.

Most work in either the service, hospitality, or construction industry. Read more about Pew Researcher: Rate of Illegal Immigrant Males in Workforce 12 Percent Higher Than US-Born Males

Today the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest held a hearing on the displacement of American workers through the H-1B and related guest worker programs. Among the witnesses was Prof. Hal Salzman of Rutgers. This exchange pretty much says it all, with regard to the fictitious “STEM shortage.”

Q. Prof. Salzman, in an article that appeared in U.S. News and World Report, you wrote, “guest workers currently make up two-thirds of all IT hires.” That’s two-thirds of all information technology hiring in America was done by guest workers. What would happen if the guest worker green card provisions in the Gang of Eight bill, or the SKILLS Act, or I-Squared became law? How would it change things?

Prof. Salzman: Well, it would dramatically increase the number. And we find, based on those estimates, that it would provide enough guest workers to fill 100 percent of the jobs with perhaps 50 percent left in reserve that could then be used to backfill and replace current workers. So the current bills supply more than even what the industry says it needs to fill every new job.

So who would lose those jobs? Right: American citizens. In his prepared testimony, Salzman added:

* The U.S. supply of top performing graduates is large and far exceeds the hiring needs of the STEM industries.

* Future demand for computer science graduates can be met by just half to two-thirds of the current annual supply of U.S. computer science graduates.

* Guestworker supply is large and highly concentrated in the IT industry; it is likely a factor in both stagnant wages and job insecurity.

* The predominant function of IT guestworker visa programs is to facilitate the offshoring of IT work.

* A growing function of the IT guestworker visa programs is to replace American workers for domestic-based projects.

* The number of guestworkers is equal to two-thirds of current entry-level and early-career hiring.

* Current guestworker visa policies for students and new graduates appear to provide incentives to colleges and universities to establish Masters programs that, as their business model, almost exclusively recruit foreign students into lower quality programs that provide easy entry into the U.S. labor market, further expanding the supply of entry-level STEM workers. …

* “Green Cards for Grads” provisions in I-Squared, S. 744 and other bills would provide incentives for colleges and universities to establish or expand current Masters programs as “global services” that offer a green card for the price of a graduate degree, and that are offered primarily or even exclusively for foreign students and directly or indirectly exclude U.S. students.

* In sum, current policies and the proposed changes in high skill guestworker visas and immigration policies that increase the supply of guestworkers are likely to accelerate the already deteriorating labor force conditions and career prospects for STEM graduates and workers.

None of this seems very hard to grasp. All across America, workers have seen their wages decline as jobs grow ever scarcer. This is Obamanomics: Democrat Party cronies get rich, while the middle class withers away.

Jeff Sessions, as always the main spokesman for the aspirations of American workers, said this at today’s hearing:

People aren’t commodities. We compare labor to commodities, but they’re not commodities. They’re human beings. They have families. They have hopes and dreams. They want stability in their lives. They would like to have a good job at a company like the biggest utility in California—California Edison [where hundreds of Americans were laid off and replaced with guest workers]… We have no obligation to yield to the lust of big businesses… Mr. Zuckerberg is worth $27 billion, I guess he is 27 years old, I’m not sure. So he wants more foreign workers. I would like to think he might want to pay his employees more and maybe not have quite so many billions, if he’d like to be helpful, and maybe he could get more local workers.

And here he is on video, with his customary plain-speaking style:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/03/populism-on-immigration-is-the-winning-message.php

It is undeniable that Congress’s duty is to American workers, not foreign workers, however admirable those individuals may be. The message that Sessions articulated today, as he has repeatedly over the past several years, is devastating. The Democrats cannot stand up against it. If Republicans consistently articulate a populist, pro-American worker message on immigration, they will sweep the 2016 election from the presidency on down to your local county commissioner. And they will be doing the right thing for the people they represent. Read more about Populism On Immigration Is the Winning Message

A federal judge signaled Monday that he has no plans to act soon on the Obama Administration's request to stay an order blocking President Barack Obama's latest round of executive actions on immigration.

U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen said in an order issued Monday afternoon that he views as serious claims that federal government lawyers may have misled the court about the implementation of new immigration policies the president ordered in November.

Last week, the Justice Department advised Hanen that the federal government issued new 3-year "deferred action" grants and work permits to 100,000 people between November 24 and when Hanen blocked the Obama moves on February 16.

The group of 26 states whose lawsuit persuaded Hanen to block the Obama immigration actions recently filed a motion calling the federal disclosure "surprising" and asserting that Justice Department lawyers had assured the court that no action would be taken to implement Obama's new policies until mid-February.

Obama's moves announced in November expanded eligibility for the "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals" program and initiated a new program for illegal immigrants who are parents of U.S. citizens or permanent residents. However, there was a third part to Obama's new actions: he extended the "deferred action" period protecting certain immigrants from deportation from two years to three, and authorized the issuance of three-year work permits as well.

Hanen, who sits in Brownsville, Texas, said Monday that he wants a more complete explanation of what happened.

"Due to the seriousness of the matters discussed therein, the Court will not rule on any other pending motions until it is clear that these matters, if true, do not impact the pending matters or any rulings previously made by this Court," Hanen wrote. He set a hearing on the matter for March 19 and ordered that Justice Department lawyers "be prepared to fully explain to this Court all of the matters addressed in and circumstances surrounding" the notice the feds sent the judge last week.

A Justice official who asked not to be named said Hanen's ruling was being reviewed.

Hanen's decision appears to indicate that he won't be meeting a deadline of sorts the Justice Department set last week, warning it could move to an appeals court to block Hanen's original injunction if he didn't act on a stay request by the close of business Monday.

A few weeks ago, federal government lawyers set a similar timing target for Hanen, but did not move to the 5th Circuit after he failed to rule by that time Read more about Judge delays ruling on unblocking Obama immigration executive actions

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — A suburban Kansas City hotel owner was sentenced Monday to 27 months in prison in a case that highlights the U.S. Justice Department’s shift to targeting employers who knowingly hire immigrants not authorized to work in the United States.

Munir Ahmad Chaudary, 53, and his wife pleaded guilty in July to conspiracy to encourage immigrants to reside unlawfully in the United States. His 42-year-old wife, Rhonda R. Bridge, was sentenced last month to 21 months imprisonment....

... U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said in a news release. “You can go to prison for knowingly employing undocumented workers. Violating federal law is not a good business strategy.”

Prosecutors say that the couple replaced lawfully employed workers with immigrants not authorized to work in the United States ...

“The Chaudarys sought to game the system and gain an unfair business advantage over their legitimate competitors...

The U.S. attorney’s office said their investigation began in 2011 when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Kansas Department of Revenue received information the hotels were unlawfully employing foreign workers. An undercover agent was hired in June 2012 even though he told his employers he was not authorized to work in the United States.
  Read more about Kansas City-area hotel owner gets 27 months in prison for hiring workers illegally in U.S.

No discussion of immigration reform in Washington gets very far without some politician boldly declaring, “The first thing we must do is secure the border,” as if that were a novel idea and panacea for illegal immigration.

Once and for all: The border is a red herring. It’s not our border that’s out of control; it’s the Obama administration that’s out of control and the border is just one of many casualties in the president’s assault on immigration enforcement.

What we have on our hands is an immigration meltdown engineered by the president and his political appointees. Our immigration courts have ceased to function, and virtually every illegal alien has been exempted from removal, even if they were operating. Work permits are being handed out to illegal aliens like lollipops on Halloween – about 5.5 million since Obama came to office in 2009.

Of course our borders out of control!

In recent days, the Department of Justice announced that because immigration courts are so overwhelmed, most people with cases pending will not have them heard until 2019 at the earliest. These courts are not overwhelmed because they’re busy deporting so many people who shouldn’t be here. Rather, they are overwhelmed by the number of people who have no business here seeking legalization and the tens of thousands of Central Americans who surged across the border last summer.

In reporting the story, AP cited as a “victim” of the delay the story of Maximiano Vazquez-Guevarra, an illegal alien from Mexico who recently won his appeal to become a legal permanent resident, but needs to make one more court appearance to make it final. Vasquez managed to tie up the courts for three years successfully fighting deportation (and gaining legal status) after coming to the attention of authorities when he was charged with his second DUI.

While the courts have ceased to function because, under the Obama administration, illegal aliens can spend years petitioning for legal residency because they get caught driving while intoxicated (and win), millions more are being given work permits because…well, because the administration just feels like it.

According to a new report by the Center for Immigration Studies, the Obama administration has been ignoring statutorily mandated limits on immigration (big shocker) and handing out Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) at will. Since 2009, 1.2 million people who were admitted on temporary visas that explicitly bar them from working got – you guessed it – EADs. Almost a million illegal aliens also received work authorization, despite the inconvenient law that bars them from being employed in the U.S. Another 1.7 million EADs were parceled out to folks whose status in this country was unclear. But, what the heck, the administration has no interest in finding out and no intention of doing anything about it anyway.

And all this is before they have even begun carrying out the president’s massive executive amnesty, which could grant give legal status and EADs to an additional 5 million illegal aliens, which is likely to trigger an even greater surge of illegal immigration.

First let’s secure the border? No, first we have to stop the president from rendering our entire immigration law meaningless.
  Read more about The Obama Engineered Immigration Meltdown (and Why Securing the Border is a Red Herring)

President Barack Obama has quietly handed out an extra 5.46 million work permits for non-immigrant foreigners who arrived as tourists, students, illegal immigrants or other types of migrants since 2009, according to federal documents released by a Freedom of Information Act request.

“The executive branch is operating a huge parallel work-authorization system outside the bounds of the [immigration] laws and limits written by Congress [and which] inevitably reduces job opportunities for Americans,” said Jessica Vaughan, the policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies, while filed the FOIA request.

“The true magnitude of how often he has evaded the limits set by Congress on foreign workers has never been known until now,” she told The Daily Caller.

“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 [legal] limits on immigration and work visas imposed by Congress,” she said.

On Tuesday, senators will vote for or against a budget measure that would sharply limit Obama’s ability to award another five million work permits to illegals via the Department of Homeland Security. Obama promised to hand out the next five million work permits as part of his unpopular November 2014 executive amnesty, which also largely ends efforts to repatriate the 12 million illegals living in the United States.

Fewer than 10 percent of Americans want a greater flow of immigrants, according to a new Gallup poll.

If Obama’s November amnesty survives court review and weak opposition from GOP leaders, he’ll have added more foreign workers than jobs to the economy since 2009.

Obama’s aides claim he has added 10 million jobs to the economy since 2009.

But Obama’s quiet award of five million work permits, plus his November amnesty, will have added roughly 10 million foreign workers to the economy by the end of 2015. The influx adds to the normal inflow of 1 million immigrants per year and the standing population of 2 million white-collar and blue-collar guest workers.

So 18 million foreign students and workers  including many university-trained workers  have jumped into the U.S. economy since Obama was inaugurated in 2009.

The 18 million is almost level with the roughly 24 million young Americans who have turned 18 and joined the work force in the six years since 2009. In effect, Obama has given employers the option to hire a government subsidized foreigner in place of roughly one-in-two Americans who have graduated since 2009.

That’s a great deal for employers, because the foreign workers are indirectly subsidized by the government. The subsidy is the government’s promise of citizenship to many workers if they gain and hold jobs sought by Americans, plus the many aid and welfare programs that are provided to all low-income workers.

In June 2013, the Congressional Budget Office said a large influx of migrants would stall wages and spur Wall Street profits.

The influx of foreign workers coincides with a steady drop in the percentage of Americans who are working or seeking work.

In mid-2007, roughly 66.5 percent of Americans older than 16 were working. Since then, it has declined steadily, and is now just under 63 percent. The decline means that roughly 5 million Americans have dropped out of the workforce, and are not even trying to find work.

In November 2014, one in every five U.S. jobs was held by a foreign-born worker, up from one in six jobs in January 2010, according to federal data highlighted by the Center for Immigration Studies.

The data shows that Obama’s efforts have provided work permits to 54,495 tourists in 2009, and 126,998 work permits to tourists in 2014.

His deputies gave work permits to 68,220 students in 2009, and to 147,373 students in 2014. This increase likely includes work-permits for foreign college graduates, said Vaughan.

Officials provided work permits to 68,374 illegals in 2009, to 374,517 illegals in 2013 and 158,194 illegals in 2014.

That category includes more than 650,000 younger illegals who were given work permits after June 2014 under the so-called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. It also includes work-permits for many of the 50,000-plus Central American adults and youths who crossed the border in the summer of 2014.

Overall, 690,459 work-permits were given to 50 categories of foreigners in 2009, Obama’s first year. That number rose to 1,034 million in 2014, yielding a cumulative total of 5.46 million during Obama’s tenure.

The new numbers are only for first-time awards, not work-permit extensions.

Most of the work-permits are temporary but they can be extended until a court decides to repatriate a foreign worker. The court backlog is now so great that it takes five years or more for a court to decide whether an illegal should be repatriated, said Vaughan.

Officials “can call it a temporary status, but it is effectively indefinite,” she said.

“That’s why this is such a huge incentive to game the system [because illegals] they know they can get a work permit [and] it takes a long time to resolve the case,” she said.

Article printed from The Daily Caller: http://dailycaller.com Read more about Obama Quietly Adds 5.46 Million Foreigners To Economy