During his last year in office, former President Obama nearly doubled the number of juvenile illegal aliens who were given legal status and a pathway to permanent residence.

Under the EB-4 visa, illegal alien juveniles living in the U.S. can become classified as ‘Special Immigrant Juveniles’ and petition to receive legal status under the visa program.

Subsequently, the program has become a backdoor amnesty, where migrants under the age of 21 can file for the special legal status so long as they claim their parents have either abused, abandoned, or neglected them.

“About 99 percent of these youngsters are in the nation illegally, but as ‘juvenile court dependents’ they will get full green card status once approved,” Center for Immigration Studies Fellow David North wrote about the issue in 2016. “They have to show that they are wards of the juvenile court system and have been abused or neglected by their parents, who, in almost all cases, are also illegal aliens.”

Every year, 10,000 foreign nationals can receive the EB-4 visa, which also includes religious workers, plus Afghan and Iraqi Translators who help the U.S. military and armed forces members.

In his last year in office, President Obama almost doubled the number of juveniles given the Special Immigrant Juvenile status, approving 15,101 for the visa, thus creating a backlog. There were 8,700 who were approved in 2015.

“That starts to crowd out other people in that category,” North said, referring to the religious workers and foreign translators who will be pushed into a backlog now because of the overabundance of applications that were approved for the juvenile group.

North told Breitbart Texas that the Obama Administration turned the program into a quiet amnesty.

As North explained, the Obama administration expanded the definition of “juvenile”, which ended up filling the system with applications for legal status. Petitions between 2014 and 2015 ballooned from almost 5,800 applicants to 11,500 applicants.

“The word got out,” North said.

In the last full three months of his presidency, Obama continued to expand the program, approving more than 4,400 who will now be placed into a backlog and can later receive permanent legal status in the U.S.

It remains unclear whether President Trump’s administration will continue the expansion.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.