The Obama administration may be instructing illegal immigrants to join labor unions to shield themselves from deportation.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has reportedly entered into agreements with nations including Mexico, Ecuador, and the Philippines to educate foreign workers about their rights regarding union activity, according to a Fox News report.

But because those “agreements reportedly don’t distinguish between illegal and legal immigrants,” they may actually help potential illegal immigrants shield themselves from deportation by engaging in union activities.

An NLRB spokeswoman told Fox News that under the National Labor Relations Act, “employees, whether documented or undocumented, are protected from retaliation due to union or other protected concerted activity.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) tells Fox illegals could use that as a loophole.

Employers “could instead be charged with violating the National Labor Relations Act because someone will claim that they’re doing it because the individual is engaged in unionization activities,” Goodlatte said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may also be less likely to deport illegal immigrants who are involved in union organizing. As Fox News noted, in June 2011, “then-Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton issued a memo saying: ‘ICE officers, special agents and attorneys are reminded to exercise all appropriate discretion on a case-by-case basis when making detention and enforcement decisions in the cases . . . [of] individuals engaging in a protected activity related to civil or other rights (for example, union organizing).'”

Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies told the outlet that “it seems that the union is almost selling out the interests of American workers and legal immigrant workers in order to boost its membership by appealing to illegal workers and getting the assistance of other countries in doing that.”