Almost half of illegal aliens shielded from deportation under an Obama-created temporary amnesty program have previously worked in the United States despite not holding valid Social Security numbers authorizing them to work.

A study by the University of California, San Diego, reveals that nearly 44 percent of the almost 800,000 illegal aliens who have been protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program previously worked in the U.S. without valid Social Security numbers.

The study, according to Center for Immigration Studies Researcher Ronald Mortensen, sheds light on the potential identity theft rate of DACA recipients.

“However, these individuals were unable to legally obtain Social Security numbers for their pre-DACA employment, which means that they used fraudulently obtained Social Security numbers that all-too-often belong to American citizens, including American children,” Mortensen writes. He continues:

The use of unlawfully obtained Social Security numbers by individuals eligible for DACA status is so pervasive that the Obama administration instructed applicants not to disclose their illegally obtained numbers. That ensured that Americans who are the victims of DACA identity theft were left with destroyed credit, arrest records attached to their names, unpaid tax liabilities, and corrupted medical records while the DACA recipients walked away scot-free from multiple felonies — forgery, Social Security fraud, perjury on I-9 forms, and identity theft.

Mortensen says President Trump’s administration should implement a plan called “DACA Victims’ Restitution Fund” where DACA illegal aliens who have previously worked under stolen Social Security numbers would pay a fine to their American victims ranging from $3,000 to $5,000.

Under Mortensen’s plan, if DACA recipients cannot pay their fine, the open borders and cheap labor lobby would be allowed to help each illegal alien raise the funds needed to pay back their American identity theft victim.

The revelation of potential mass identity theft by DACA recipients comes as GOP lawmakers are crafting two separate pieces of legislation that both would give permanent amnesty to the illegal aliens, as Breitbart News reported.

Previously, Breitbart News reported how a former official with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) estimated that the fraud rate in the DACA program was roughly “40 to 50 percent.”

“Based on what I had seen and what I discussed with my colleagues, the fraud rate is 40 to 50 percent. It’s possible that it was higher,” Matt O’Brien told LifeZette at the time.

O’Brien’s assertion that USCIS often rushed to get illegal aliens on the DACA rolls matches up with previous Breitbart Texas reporting, which revealed how the Obama Administration added 122,221 DACA recipients to the amnesty program in the last three months of his presidency.

At the time, immigration expert John Miano told Breitbart Texas that the approval rate for DACA in Obama’s last three months stood at roughly 98 percent, leaving wide open the potential for fraud and abuse in the program.

Since DACA’s inception, more than 2,100 DACA recipients saw their protected status revoked for being involved in gang activity or suspected/convicted of a felony. Due to a loophole in the DACA program, more than 39,000 illegal aliens have been able to obtain Green Cards and more than 1,000 naturalized.