AFL-CIO to Obama: Unilaterally Grant Work Permits to Illegals

AFL-CIO to Obama: Unilaterally Grant Work Permits to Illegals

The AFL-CIO wants President Barack Obama to unilaterally give work permits and temporary amnesty to most of the country’s illegal immigrants. 

On Tuesday, a day after Obama used a Rose Garden speech to say he would try to change as many immigration laws as possible on his own, the labor group that purportedly protects workers recommended that the Obama administration enact four executive actions. Its top recommendation was for the Department of Homeland Security to “grant affirmative relief with work authorization to individuals who are low priorities for removal or eligible for prosecutorial discretion under existing DHS policies.”

“Based on our experience, most workers will not take action to enforce their workplace rights if they know they can be fired or, worse, deported if they complain about non-payment of wages, dangerous working conditions, or sexual harassment,” the AFL-CIO wrote to the Obama administration. 

Increasing the number of work permits, as the Congressional Budget Office determined, would lower the wages of American workers and displace some Americans from their jobs. For those reasons, U.S. Civil Rights Commissioner Peter Kirsanow has urged the Congressional Black Caucus to vote against amnesty legislation, saying black Americans at the lower end of the economic ladder who are already facing stiff competition for jobs would be hurt most.

A recent Center for Immigration Studies report found that all of the net job growth since 2000 went to illegal and legal immigrants.

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