Immigration Reform 2014: President Obama, White House Mulling Over Work Permits for Undocumented Immigrants

A temporary work program for young undocumented immigrants is expected to start taking applications next month. The new government program, which would keep thousands of people from being immediately deported, is expected to open up for applications in mid-August. 

The program, which may cost more than $500 million to operate, is in its earliest stages and would require a lot of additional manpower. There's a chance 1,400 full-time employees would need to be added to the ranks of the Homeland Security Department.

"U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services estimated it could receive more than 1 million applications during the first year of the program, or more than 3,000 per day," the Associated Press reported. "It would cost between $467 million and $585 million to process applications in the first two years of the program, with revenues from fees paid by immigrants estimated at $484 million, according to the plans. That means the cost to the government could range from a gain of $16 million to a loss of more than $101 million."

An estimated 890,000 people would be "immediately eligible to avoid deportation" in the first year, and another "151,000 immigrants would likely be rejected as ineligible."

The idea of granting temporary work permits to undocumented immigrants was originally brought up in earlier this year by House leaders during their annual retreat.

"In the House approach, they've been, you know, a little bit more resistant to granting, as they deem it, amnesty to folks who came here illegally. So this is sort of their middle ground, like not barring all of them from citizenship, which is what some in the House would like to do, but at least opening up that avenue to those who - to at least about half of them, a little bit than half are what the estimates are calling for," a USA Today reported explained.

In a separate article the AP said, "Such a large-scale move on immigration could scramble election-year politics and lead some conservative Republicans to push for impeachment proceedings against President Barack Obama, a prospect White House officials have openly discussed."

"Obama's move on deferred action two years ago gave him a boost heading into his re-election and could help this year with Latino voters discouraged over the failure of immigration reform legislation and record-high deportations on Obama's watch," the article said. "Republicans would be in a position of deciding whether to come out in favor of deporting sympathetic groups, such as parents, and many liberals say impeachment talk would only shore up Democratic base voters."