The federal government should rush amnesty for hundreds of thousands of illegals by January 19, says a letter that three former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretaries wrote to Congress.

“We write … to stress that it should be enacted speedily,” according to former DHS secretaries Jeh Johnson, Janet Napolitano, and Michael Chertoff. Johnson and Napolitano worked for former President Barack Obama, and Chertoff worked for former President George W. Bush. None of the signatories support President Donald Trump’s effort to reform immigration so that Americans can get higher wages.

The letter, which describes the illegals as “dreamers,” claimed the rush is needed because DHS agency officials need weeks to implement the amnesty and because any delays would inconvenience business groups and the illegals. “It should be enacted speedily, in order to meet the significant administrative requirements of implementation, as well as the need to provide certainty for employers and these young people,” the letter said.

“For these reasons, the realistic deadline for successfully establishing a Dreamers program in time to prevent large-scale loss of work authorization and deportation protection is only weeks away, in the middle of January.”

The New York Times reported:

In September, Mr. Trump ordered an end to the program, which shields young undocumented immigrants from deportation, and gave Congress six months to extend those protections, granted by Mr. Obama under an executive action in 2012. The policy permits beneficiaries of the program, known as Dreamers, to remain in the country without fear of immediate removal and gives them the right to work legally.

The former secretaries claim in the letter that legislation should be passed by January 19 to allow time for an amnesty process to be put in place.

“For context, in 2012 when DACA was established, it took nearly 90 days before the first applications were approved,” the letter said, adding:

Even if it only takes half of that time for [the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services] to establish a DACA press under legislation, Congress needs to pass a bill by January 19th to provide enough time for USCIS to process applications before tens of thousands of DACA recipients are negatively impacted by the loss of their work authorization or removal from the United States.

In August, Breitbart News reported that a study by an amnesty-supporting group headed by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed how DACA recipients can take jobs away from American workers.

Zuckerberg’s FWD.us released the study with the intention of showing the hardships of ending DACA.

Instead, it revealed that ending DACA could open up 700,000 jobs for American citizens.

This is not the first time Chertoff, whom the New York Times only ties to the George W. Bush administration in its reporting, has supported amnesty.

In 2013, Chertoff joined the open-borders lobby and the big business community to promote the failed “Gang of Eight” amnesty legislation, which would have put 12 to 30 million illegal aliens on a pathway to U.S. citizenship.

“The time is right to do this, for our economy, for our border enforcement system and for our obligation to our fellow human beings,” Chertoff said in 2013.

The Times said aides to the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate declined to comment on the letter for its report.