WASHINGTON — Immigrant advocates fear a Trump administration proposal released Friday amounts to an indefinite pause on new work permits for asylum seekers.
The draft regulation from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would halt the acceptance of work permit applications when average processing times at the agency exceed 180 days.
The regulation also would extend the time asylum seekers must wait before becoming eligible to apply for a work permit, lengthening the period from 150 days to 365 days.
The proposal says USCIS expects that new work permit applications for asylum seekers “would be paused for an extended period, possibly many years.”
An unnamed spokesperson with the Department of Homeland Security wrote in a statement that the proposal is aimed at reducing the incentive for immigrants to file fraudulent asylum claims for the purpose of getting work authorization. More than 1.4 million asylum claims are pending with USCIS.
By reducing the number of work permit applications, the spokesperson added, the agency could instead focus on reviewing pending asylum claims to reduce the backlog.
“For too long, a fraudulent asylum claim has been an easy path to working in the United States, overwhelming our immigration system with meritless applications,” the spokesperson wrote. “We are proposing an overhaul of the asylum system to enforce the rules and reduce the backlog we inherited from the prior administration. Aliens are not entitled to work while we process their asylum applications.”
Conchita Cruz, co-executive director of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, said the regulation would be catastrophic for asylum seekers, their families and U.S. communities.
“Forcing individuals who are working and living in the United States legally out of their jobs is not only cruel, but it is bad policy,” she said. “If this regulation goes into effect, it will hurt U.S. families, businesses and the U.S. economy.”
The proposed regulation change comes amid broad efforts by the Trump administration to end humanitarian benefits and restrict legal immigration.
For example, Homeland Security has sought to terminate Temporary Protected Status benefits that provided work permits and deportation protection to hundreds of thousands of immigrants. And in a memo released this weekthe agency said agents are authorized to detain refugees who arrived legally but have not yet filed applications for lawful permanent residence after their first year in the U.S.
Under the first Trump administration, agency officials in 2020 similarly proposed increasing the employment eligibility waiting period to one year.
