One of the real scandals of immigration policy since the Great Recession is that we continue to issue over a million “green cards”—which give work authorization—a year. Despite 15 million Americans being out of work and millions more under-employed, politicians in Washington refuse to even discuss this fact.
The Department of Homeland security just released its figures for Fiscal Year 2010. (Fiscal Years begin in October of the previous year and continue for the next 12 months). See summary here (pdf.) and download detailed tables here (Excel).
The good news: the numbers are down, slightly. The bad news: they are still incredibly high.
In 2009, the U.S. issued 1,130,818 million green cards. In 2010 the U.S. issued 1,042,625 million green cards. Contrary to some immigration enthusiast propaganda, a high proportion of these are prime working age (and, of course, others soon will be): In 2009, 808,478 green cards were issued to immigrants aged 20-65. In 2010, we issued 746,607.
It is important to note that these legal immigrant numbers do not include temporary workers—the Department of Homeland Security has not issued those statistics yet. These green card holders are given immediate work authorizations to compete against Americans in every job. Additionally, unless they commit multiple felonies—and assuming our left wing immigration courts do not make exceptions, which they often do—they are here for good and on the path to citizenship.
