Failure to Reauthorize Employment Harms Asylum Seekers and the U.S. Economy

U.S. employees are shedding their jobs attributable to bureaucratic delays at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Companies (USCIS), regardless of an economic system determined for employees. Asylum seekers eager to renew their employment authorization paperwork are sometimes ready for upwards of a yr for renewal, leading to job loss and related advantages.

On Wednesday, 5 employees filed a nationwide class motion lawsuit on behalf of themselves and different employees affected by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Companies’ illegal delays. The employees are represented by the American Immigration Council, the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Challenge (ASAP), and Lakin & Wille LLP.

Plaintiffs are a medical physician treating underserved rural populations, a long-haul truck driver, a meals companies supervisor, a expertise employee, and a behavioral well being care employee for particular wants kids. Regardless of nationwide shortages in every of those industries, the plaintiffs have misplaced or will lose their jobs in coming days as a result of USCIS has delayed renewing their work authorization, regardless of their well timed submitting for renewal.

A type of employees is Dr. Muradyan, who misplaced her positions at two rural hospitals, the place she cared for COVID victims. Now she has misplaced monetary help for her household, and he or she faces an irreparable interruption in her residency. One other plaintiff, who’s eight months pregnant, will lose her job as a supervisor at McDonald’s and well being advantages shortly earlier than giving start if USCIS fails to reauthorize her employment within the subsequent few days.

For asylum seekers asking to resume their employment authorization, USCIS has already decided that they’re approved to work beneath the immigration laws. Renewal is a straightforward, simple course of—regardless of the acute delays on the company’s finish.

This lack of work authorization is happening whereas the USA is dealing with a widespread nationwide employee scarcity. In August 2021, the U.S. Labor Division reported that there have been 10.4 million job openings, whereas the variety of people leaving employment rose to 4.3 million, the best month-to-month stage reported since December 2000. Main financial consultants have lengthy maintained that authorizing immigrants, like asylum seekers, to work can play a vital function in ameliorating labor shortages.

Unsurprisingly, lack of labor authorization acutely impacts these asylum seekers’ capability to help themselves and their households, placing them in monetary peril. However additionally they expertise cascading harms with out an employment authorization doc. They lose employment-based advantages like medical health insurance, and the doc itself is a prerequisite to receiving driver’s licenses and different state help.

These delays additionally have an effect on a neighborhood for whom stability is vital. For the plaintiffs, shedding their work authorization has resulted in anxiousness, lack of sleep, and melancholy, and has interrupted needed remedy to handle psychological well being challenges which might be widespread for survivors of persecution.

That is forms at its worst. We hope that USCIS reassesses its priorities to help asylum seekers and the U.S. economic system.

FILED UNDER: USCIS