Agency Would Raise Bar for Asylum Seekers’ Work Permits

By Michelle Hackman

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration wants to make it harder for asylum seekers to receive work permits while they wait for their cases to be decided, a move that could deter some immigrants from entering the country illegally.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agency that processes asylum applications, announced Friday it will propose a rule next week scrapping a requirement that asylum seekers receive a work permit within 30 days of applying for one.

Unauthorized immigrants must already wait at least five months after filing an asylum petition to apply for a work permit in the U.S., and immigration attorneys say many immigrants might wait up to a year after arriving in the country to receive the permit.

In a statement, USCIS Acting Director Ken Cuccinelli said the agency wants to do away with the 30-day deadline to allow it more time to screen applicants for national security and other concerns.

“Our first priority as an agency is to safeguard the integrity of our nation’s legal immigration system from those who seek to exploit or abuse it,” he said.

By doing away with the 30-day deadline, the government isn’t obligated to grant these immigrants work permits at all. Federal law states that asylum seekers may work but aren’t entitled to do so.

The administration has long argued that migrants from Central America, who make up the majority of those illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, are attracted by the U.S. asylum system. Immigrants who pass an initial “credible fear” interview are often allowed to remain in the U.S. for years as their claims wend their way through the backlogged immigration-court system, and in the meantime these immigrants are permitted to work.

Previous administrations have viewed work permits as a way of making sure these asylum seekers remain self-sufficient in the U.S. But the Trump administration regards the opportunity to work—and send remittances back to workers’ home countries—as a major driver of illegal immigration.

Immigrant-rights advocates argue that by cutting off the ability to work, the government is pushing an already-vulnerable group of people into a more desperate situation. Asylum seekers aren’t eligible for government benefits.

“This proposed rule would impact asylum seekers’ ability to work legally and has the potential to drive people to work under the table,” said Dan Kosten, assistant director of policy and advocacy for skills and workforce development at the National Immigration Forum.

In the government’s 2018 budget year, the USCIS granted 1.6 million work permits, though it wasn’t immediately known how many of those went to asylum seekers.

Also on Friday, Democracy Forward, a legal organization, filed a lawsuit in the District of Columbia district court on behalf of several asylum seekers against USCIS, alleging that several recent policy changes make it tougher for immigrants to pass their initial “credible fear” interviews. Those policy changes include shortening the time asylum seekers have to consult with lawyers before their interviews and curtailing an immigrant’s ability to delay an interview while seeking counsel or searching for documents.

The suit also alleges that any policy put forth by the USCIS is unlawful because its acting director, Mr. Cuccinelli, was installed without Congress’s approval, jumping ahead of senior agency officials or others at the Department of Homeland Security who could have been elevated.

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com