The Washington Times reports that all of you who were worried that there wasn’t enough unskilled labor available to fill up the job openings across the nation need not be concerned. Through a Freedom of Information Act request it’s been revealed that the administration has already handed out more than five million work permits to persons of variously undetermined status of citizenship or legal presence in the country.

New documents reveal that the Obama administration has issued roughly 5.5 million work permits to non-citizens without Congressional authorization.

The documents, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the conservative-leaning Center for Immigration Studies demonstrate what critics call a “shadow” or “parallel” immigration system that infringes on employment opportunities for Americans, Fox News reported Saturday…

The 5.5 million work permits issued by administrative action are an addition to the 5 million green cards and 3.5 million guest worker permits authorized by Congress during the 2009-2014 period, Fox reported.

Lest you worry they were excluding people based on matters as reductive as criminal status, it gets better.

In addition, 23,215 parolees, nearly 1,000 stowaways and 49 people suspected of document fraud were also given permits, according to the study.

Here’s the breakdown of the largest batch:

Illegal immigrants – 928,000
People of “unknown” immigration status – 1.7 million
Temporary visa holders – 1.8 million

One of the biggest concerns being expressed is that possession of a work permit can be a fast track to a drivers license or other form of ID, particularly in California. And once you have that, detainment for eventual deportation is pretty much out the window. On the plus side, if the President and/or Senate Democrats decide to shut down DHS by not passing the funding bill, there will be far less work for the Border Patrol to do anyway.

When you look at news like this, the whole “comprehensive immigration reform” debate begins to look rather silly, doesn’t it? The administration wasn’t waiting to win any sort of battle in Congress or the court of public opinion. It’s already a done deal.