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发帖数: 61690 | 1 The White House said Wednesday it was “crazy” to attempt to divine the
president's post-election plans for an immigration executive order based on
a procurement request issued by the Department of Homeland Security.
“I mean, this is crazy,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said,
adding he would caution reporters against “making assumptions” based on
the “procurement of green paper.”
The proposal, unveiled earlier this week by Breitbart News, asks potential
contractors to prepare for the possibility of producing up to 34 million
green cards and work permits over the next five years.
If fully filled, that would far surpass the current levels processed by the
department. The U.S. issues a maximum of 480,000 green cards per year, and
processed 862,000 work permits over the first six months of this year.
That's led many conservatives to speculate the order was made in preparation
of a sweeping executive order by President Obama that could legalize
millions of new or illegal immigrants.
But the White House said Wednesday such speculation was unfounded.
Earnest said those who were interpreting the solicitation as a signal of the
president's plans were “a little too cleverly trying to divine” the
president's intention, and that Obama had not even made final determinations
about what he planned to announce after the election.
A spokesman for the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Service also downplayed the
significance of the purchase order.
“Solicitations of this nature are frequent practice for all USCIS contracts
and allow the Agency to be prepared for fluctuations in the number of
immigration applications received, which can arise for any number of reasons
,” said USCIS spokesman Chris Bently.
Business and immigration organizations lobbied Obama to expand the green
card program for high-tech workers and the relatives of existing U.S.
citizens and permanent residents.
They've suggested altering how the federal government issues green cards and
specialty visas. Rather than counting each individual family member against
the overall cap, the government could instead only count the head of a
family — and not siblings, spouses, or children. |
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