There's been a successive series of US federal administrations that gave them a pass, either through lack of enforcement or inventing temporary work visas that also covered people who already illegally immigrated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_protected_status Biden expanded this authority to cover ~1.2M new people

Also in states like California they let undocumented immigrants get drivers licenses. They can even get bank accounts and mortgages in some states (which is basically impossible here in Canada).

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ericfr11 2 days ago | parent [-]

They still need to prove residency. They also cannot vote, and this is not a legal status: just the right to drive

	▲	dmix 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes but the topic wasn't about voting? OP was asking how there's huge communities of undocumented people in the US and how they manage to work and live without legal status. Which would be an unusual thing in almost any country. The logistics of doing so is a valid question (how do you drive to work, how do you find housing, how do you get healthcare, etc). The answer is many state and federal policies support having millions of undocumented people in legal limbo indefinitely, by offering them pseudo-legal status or loopholes.