Advocates warn immigrants could lose jobs as DHS stops automatically extending work permits

The Trump administration said it will eliminate an automatic grace period for legal immigrants waiting for renewed work visas, a shift advocates said will likely force people out of the workforce because of a long-standing backlog at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

On Wednesday, USCIS officials — the component of the Department of Homeland Security tasked with managing the nation’s immigration system — said they were preparing a new rule which “prioritizes vetting, screening to protect public safety, national security.”

The move is one of series of changes designed to constrain legal immigration during Trump’s second term.

The rule takes effect Thursday, Oct. 30, and immigrants who file renewals could lose their jobs during the gap between the expiration of their documents and a pending application. Under the current rules, immigrants with pending applications have already been screened multiple times by federal officials.

“USCIS is placing a renewed emphasis on robust alien screening and
vetting, eliminating policies the former administration implemented that
prioritized aliens’ convenience ahead of Americans’ safety and
security,” said Joseph Edlow, the agency’s director, in a published statement.
“It’s a commonsense measure to ensure appropriate vetting and screening
has been completed before an alien’s employment authorization or
documentation is extended. All aliens must remember that working in the
United States is a privilege, not a right.”

Immigration lawyers called the move “cruel” and “short-sighted.”

“I have said this since the first Trump administration: some of the
smallest changes they make inflict the most cruelty,” said Jesse
Evans-Schroeder, a Tucson immigration attorney. “This
is just a cruel policy designed for one purpose and one purpose only — to
deprive people of legal authorization to work.”

“Many people will lose
their jobs because USCIS’s processing times for renewals are far longer
than the window in which someone is allowed to submit a renewal.”

“The stated reason for the elimination of the automatic extension
‘enhanced screening and vetting’ is totally pre-textual,” Evans-Schroeder
said. “No one can apply for a work permit without some other
application for an immigration benefit pending. They have already been
or are being vetted.”

Last year, Biden administration officials extended the automatic renewal from 180 days to 540 days to protect workers as the agency dug itself out from a massive backlog created in part by the COVID-19 pandemic. Last
year, the agency issued the temporary rule automatically extending work
authorizations for up to 540 days to keep around 800,000 people
employed. At the time, CIS estimated the change would preserve around
$29.1 billion in earnings from immigrants in the U.S. and generate about
$3.1 billion in taxes over a five-year period.

Some immigrants will receive automatic extensions, including people who have work documents through Temporary Protected Status, the agency said.

Agency
officials said they were cutting down permit processing delays, cutting
the time it takes to renew employment documents from around nearly nine
months in August 2022 to just under four months in February 2024, said
AILA.

USCIS currently has a net backlog of nearly 5 million applications, including nearly 776,000 applications for employment, according to recent figures. And, the average processing time for a this document is 3.7 months. 

However, Evans-Schroeder said in many cases the wait time is at least 7 months. 

For people who arrived in the U.S. to seek
asylum, the wait time for an EAD
is around 7 months. For someone on a pending green card, the wait time
is 7 months, and for refugees, the wait time is over 20 months, she said.

And,
people who apply for U.S. residency in the immigration court system
“routinely wait well over a year for their renewals,” she added. This week’s change will mean people will “have a lapse
in their employment authorization and will lose their jobs.” 

Further,
businesses “will lose valued and hardworking employees because of this
policy,” she said. 

CIS extended the work permits for “one
reason only—they knew that they were taking too long to process these
applications,” Evans-Schroeder
said in an email.

Advocates with the American Immigration Lawyers Association agreed.

“Without any notice, the Trump administration is yet again pulling
the rug out from under U.S. employers and workers,” said AILA President
Jeff Joseph. He said under the previous rules, people who were already vetted
were allowed to continue working while USCIS worked through pending
applications.

“For nearly a decade, the agency automatically
extended work permits for 180 days, which was later increased to 540
days, to provide relief from massive backlogs and delays in government
processing,” Joseph said. 

“Now, the Trump administration wants to
eliminate this fail-safe which protected employers and workers from
government inefficiencies. This action fast tracks pink slips as
employers will have no choice but to fire needed workers,” he said. “The
Trump administration is again failing to support American businesses and
in fact, outright harming our nation’s economic stability,” he said.

“This is another short-sighted policy decision by the Trump administration that will not only impact families but also hurt businesses,” said Mo Goldman, an immigration attorney and sharp critic of the Trump administration. “The work permit auto-extension was enacted to bridge the gap for necessary workers to remain employed while USCIS has taken several months to process their extensions.” 

Goldman said the rule was a “smart stop-gap measure that this administration is terminating for no good reason.” 

“Hopefully, the business community speaks up and supports elected officials that care more about their employees than playing a gotcha game with their lives,” he said.

“Rather than improving the process the administration is blowing it up and taking American business and workers down with it,” said Ben Johnson, AILA’s executive director. Johnson said those following the rules will “be out of work and out of luck due to bureaucratic delays.” 

“Because USCIS is not properly funded or staffed, people who file applications to renew their valid work permits regularly face extended months-long delays for their applications to be approved,” Johnson said. “Given the administration’s stated desire to bring businesses back to our shores, this policy change is nonsensical and punishes those who are following our laws.”