NEW YORK (CMC):
New York Attorney General Letitia James is leading a multi-state coalition calling for expanded access to work authorisation for new Caribbean immigrants
James is leading a coalition of 19 attorneys general calling on the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to expedite and expand access to work authorisation for newly arrived Caribbean and other immigrants, especially asylum seekers and migrants.
Many of the asylum seekers arriving in New York from the southern border of the United States are nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
In a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the coalition commends the department’s efforts in September to remove barriers to securing work authorisation, and requests additional action to protect new immigrants and make it easier for them to support their families by securing stable jobs.
AP
Immigrants who have been in the U.S. for years, rally asking for work permits for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and Temporary Protected Status (TPS), programs at Franklin Park in Washington, Tuesday, November 14, 2023.
“New immigrants, so many of whom fled horrific circumstances in pursuit of a better life in America, deserve an opportunity to find good-paying, stable jobs,” James told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).
“It is unconscionable that after all the suffering they’ve endured on their journey, they encounter bureaucratic roadblocks preventing them from pursuing the American dream.
“Asylum seekers and migrants are particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, and I thank my fellow attorneys general for joining this effort to ensure they are treated with dignity,” she added.
While many new immigrants, including those seeking asylum status, are eager to find employment to provide for themselves and their families, James said that without work authorisation, they have been forced to rely on state and local safety net programmes for food and shelter.
Underground economy
The coalition of attorneys general notes in their letter that the arduous process of obtaining work authorisation leaves many immigrant families without stable housing, and forces some to seek work in the underground economy, “where they are targets for exploitation”.
James said current work authorisation applications often require expensive fees or complex fee-waiver requirements, preventing a large portion of immigrants from even applying for the permit.
She said backlogs in the approval of work authorisation permits have led to months-long wait times for approval.
“Migrants from regions such as Haiti have been disproportionately impacted, with their humanitarian parole status expiring before their work authorisation is granted,” James said, adding, “such structural barriers prevent these vulnerable populations from becoming self-sufficient and building stable lives in America”.
She said the coalition fully supports DHS’s previous measures to improve access to work authorisation, which included speeding up application processing and increasing the amount of time that work authorisation permits are valid for.
However, James said the coalition’s letter notes that additional measures are needed to eliminate the barriers new immigrants face in finding stable jobs to support themselves.
She said the coalition recommends that the DHS take four additional steps to expedite access to work authorisation, namely, grant provisional work authorisation to allow eligible parolees and asylum seekers to work while their full application for work authorisation is pending; eliminate application fees for those granted humanitarian parole and allow applications with a fee waiver to be submitted online; and re-parole those awaiting work authorisation, to prevent the expiration of their parole status while attempting to obtain employment.
The coalition also wants to streamline the application processes to make it easier for immigrants to apply for work authorisation and for DHS to process applications.
For example, the New York attorney general said the coalition recommends simplifying and translating the work authorisation application form into multiple languages, to make it more accessible for applicants.