A new rule proposed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security could delay new work authorization applications filed by asylum seekers for as long as 173 years. It also proposes new eligibility criteria for work permits for asylum seekers, and makes some renewals of work authorizations more difficult.
Lawyers and human rights advocates say the proposed changes would further strangle legal pathways for immigrants in the United States and cause ripple effects for local economies.
“People fleeing persecution won’t abandon their [applications] because of a work permit rule,” Abdiqani Jabane, founder and lead attorney of Jabane Law Firm, told Sahan Journal. “This policy won’t stop asylum seekers from coming — it just punishes them while they wait, making it harder to survive the process.”
The rule, proposed under The Administrative Procedures Act, doesn’t yet have immediate effect on current work authorization permits, renewals and applications already filed. The DHS is welcoming public comments on the proposal until April 24; comments will be reviewed before a decision is made. Lawyers also say that if approved, the rule might face litigation.
“It just continues to narrow and restrict all sorts of access for people in the immigration system to access lawful pathways,” said Julia Decker, policy director at Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota.
What the current process looks like:
Currently, asylum seekers, who often have to wait as long as five years or more for an interview on their asylum case, can work in the country with an Employment Authorization Document issued by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
They are eligible to apply for the same employment authorization after their asylum application has been pending for 150 days, after which the USCIS takes up to 30 days to issue a work permit. That adds up to a 180-day waiting and processing period.
What the proposed rule would do if enacted:
The proposed rule outlines three major changes in processing times and eligibility for new work authorizations:
1. USCIS will stop accepting new employment authorization applications until it can process asylum applications within 180 days. USCIS says that depending on the backlog of pending asylum applications, it could take the agency anywhere between 14 to 173 years to start accepting new work authorization applications again.
“So what that really means, in effect, is that this could just be a full-stop ban on being able to get a new work permit,” said Lindsey Greising, policy counsel at Advocates for Human Rights.
2. The proposal would push the current 180-day waiting and processing period to 1.5 years by stretching the initial 150-day wait to a year. It would also extend the 30-day processing time to six months.
3. It would restrict eligibility as well, excluding people who had entered the country without authorization unless they had had some interaction with immigration enforcement, like identifying themselves at the border to seek asylum. It would also exclude people with certain criminal histories.
“That is pretty draconian,” Decker said. “The asylum seeking group of people are inherently people who may not have entered with permission. That is part of the understanding is that it doesn’t require you to have entered a country with any particular status, it just requires that you are physically present in the country in order to be able to ask for humanitarian protection.”
Decker added that the proposal would also exclude people whose asylum cases are denied by an asylum officer or an immigration judge before the work authorization has been decided.
The justifications for the proposed rule is “faster and more efficient adjudications of meritorious asylum claims and pending asylum employment authorization applications,” as well as to lessen the backlog of pending asylum applications. But, Decker said that the underlying goal has little to do with work authorization and more so “trying to make it so difficult and so burdensome that they don’t want people to apply.”
The importance of an Employment Authorization Document:
Guled Mohamud Omar received his work permit six months after he came to the United States in 2022, and got his first job working at a warehouse.
“People need their essential life. Everybody wants a good life, and without a work permit, nobody gets that,” he said.
Omar applied for asylum in 2022 and is awaiting a decision with his final hearing scheduled in June.
For asylum seekers awaiting decision in their cases, an Employment Authorization Document is not just authorization to work legally in the country — it’s also a valid ID that allows them to fly domestically if they had to flee their home countries without their passports and other documents.
People like Khalid Mohamud also use their employment document card to get drivers’ licenses. Mohamud, who works as a delivery worker, said it would be “a very sad situation” if people can’t get work permits.
“Some people come here for a better life, and now they are stuck like this,” he said.
What are the potential ripple effects?
Jabane said that a rule like this would not just impact immigrants, but also the local economy, landlords, schools, churches, and nonprofits, “because families who want to support themselves will instead be forced to rely on already-stretched community resources.”
He added that this would also make it hard for asylum seekers to access legal resources, meaning they may have to navigate a complex legal system by themselves, “which dramatically lowers their chances of winning protection.”
Greising is concerned that the proposal could increase human trafficking as well as the exploitation of workers if they don’t have the protection of labor laws.
“We want people to be able to exercise their right to seek asylum, which is codified in international and U.S. law, and we want them to be able to do that well, being able to take care of themselves and not fall into exploitative conditions,” she said.
The second Trump administration has seen less administrative rule changes compared to the first administration, but Greising said that they’ve noticed a significant number of rules going outside of the regulatory process as they were passed and went into effect immediately without accepting public comments.
Greising urged asylum seekers to apply for their work permits and seek legal counsel, and for the public to submit their comments on the proposed rule.
Is this an ongoing attack on legal immigration from Black and brown countries?
Erica Zurawski, co-founder of Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action, said the proposed rule is in line with the Trump administration’s targets on legal immigration from Black and brown majority countries.
During Operation Metro Surge, asylum seekers, refugees and permanent residents were targeted alike despite having legal documentation for their presence in the country. Several U.S. citizens of color, including off-duty police officers, said they were racially profiled by federal agents.
“It’s basically saying that if you are poor and come to this country fleeing violence or other conditions that are unlivable, you’re gonna have to remain poor,” she said. “It’s just stripping people of their dignity.”
