An amendment inserted in 2010 is suddenly very useful

Well this just gets more and more interesting.

Obama held a presser in the Rose Garden today in which he defended his order to halt deportation of children of illegal aliens. According to Napolitano the order will also automatically award such persons a "green card" allowing them to work in the U.S.

Now, if you're going to let them stay in the U.S. I don't think many people would object to their being allowed to work here. After all, better to work than to be on welfare, right? So I doubt this part of the directive got the attention of many conservatives or Republicans.

However, at Ace of Spades blog, commenter "f2000" found something curious:

On November 23rd of 2010 the lame-duck Democrat-controlled congress modified the law regarding employment rules for non-citizens. In that amendment is a phrase that at the time didn't seem to have any effect:

Sec. 274a.12 Classes of aliens authorized to accept employment.
(a) Aliens authorized employment incident to status. Pursuant to the
statutory or regulatory reference cited, the following classes of aliens
are authorized to be employed in the United States without restrictions
as to location or type of employment as a condition of their admission
or subsequent change to one of the indicated classes. [a lot of references omitted]

And now the amended para (11):
"An alien whose enforced departure from the United States has been
deferred in accordance with a directive from the President of the United
States to the Secretary.
Employment is authorized for the period of time and under the conditions
established by the Secretary pursuant to the Presidential directive;
(Revised effective 11/23/10; 75 FR 58962)

Again, back in November of 2010 this would have had no discernible effect. In fact I suspect not more than three members of each chamber of congress knew what this paragraph said before it was amended, nor why it was amended, nor who inserted the specific language, nor what effect this would have.

Today, though, the odd and heretofore useless language suddenly has a very beneficial use, if you're Obama.

I'd sure love to know if there's a history behind this specific amendment. Because depending on who inserted the language, and whether any record exists as to the reason, it's just barely possible that someone in the Democrat leadership had this whole plan in mind--to legalize children of illegals if they couldn't pass the Dream Act-- as long ago as 2010.

Interesting.