The Obama administration is spending nearly $50 million to hire and house 1,000 new federal workers to process immigration cases after President Obama announced that he would unilaterally protect up to 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation.
The Citizenship and Immigration Services agency will devote $40 million to annual salaries and almost $8 million a year to the lease of a new building just outside Washington, in which employees will review the claims of illegal immigrants who apply for newly protected status, according to the New York Times.
In recent weeks, critics have warned that Obama’s executive action would further increase the federal bureaucracy, leaving taxpayers on the hook for the expansion of immigration services.
“They are in the process of hiring 1,000 full-time staff to quickly approve applications for the president’s illegal amnesty, which will provide work permits, photo IDs, Social Security and Medicare to illegal immigrants — all benefits rejected by Congress,” Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said earlier this month. “This action will mean that American workers, their sons, their daughters, their parents, will now have to compete directly for jobs, wages, and benefits with millions of illegal immigrants.”
The Obama administration counters that the fees recouped through the president’s executive action eventually will cover the cost of the new federal workers.
The federal government began advertising for the new jobs soon after the president announced his immigration plan in a prime-time address.
Leon Rodriguez, the agency’s director, estimated recently that at least 5,000 people had already applied for the jobs.
Republicans have pledged to roll back Obama’s immigration plan in early February, when the funding for the Department of Homeland Security runs dry. However, they have not united behind a plan for how best to confront the president.
