Work permits for asylum seekers will now only be valid for 18 months instead of five years, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said Thursday.
The Department of Homeland Security agency said the policy change restricting immigrants access to work is partly in response to the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington last week.
“After the attack on National Guard service members in our nation’s capital by an alien who was admitted into this country by the previous administration, it’s even more clear that USCIS must conduct more frequent vetting of aliens,” USCIS Director Joseph Edlow said.
The shortened timeline applies to new work permits and work permit renewals for asylum seekers, those admitted as refugees, as well as migrants with other humanitarian protections, including those who have won their asylum cases and migrants with a form of removal relief called withholding of deportation.
The move is expected to impact hundreds of thousands of migrants, reversing a Biden-era policy, and particularly hurts industries such as construction, transportation and food services, according to estimates by fwd.us, an immigration advocacy group.
The new policy doesn’t affect those whose work permits are already approved, but it does affect those with pending applications or those filed on or after Dec. 5.
Conchita Cruz, co-executive director of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, the country’s largest membership organization for asylum seekers, said that shorter “validity periods” for work permits could create longer processing backlogs, “making it more and more likely asylum seekers will fall out of the workforce and not be able to support themselves and their families,” Cruz said.
Last week, the Trump administration brought all asylum decisions to a halt and paused immigration applications from 19 countries it has deemed high risk after the shooting of the National Guard members near the White House.
Earlier this year, the administration took steps to restrict the U.S. asylum program, which was created for migrants fleeing persecution in their home countries based on their race, religion or other factors. The administration gave the border patrol the ability to deport most migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border seeking asylum, which has been legally challenged and will go before the Supreme Court.
The administration has also raised fees for asylum applications and related work permits. In July, the administration imposed a $550 fee for first work permits for asylum seekers; the application was previously free.
Many migrants who came into the country through the U.S.-Mexico border under President Joe Biden obtained legal work authorization tied to their asylum claim while they waited for it to be processed, which can take years.
Out of roughly 3 million asylum seekers in the United States, roughly 1.4 million are working, according to a recent estimate from fwd.us.
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