The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has dealt another blow to the immigrants, this time hitting the legal workers directly. They have now cut work permit validity from 5 years to 18 months for a long list of applicants starting December 5.
The new rule applies to refugees, asylum seekers, people granted withholding of removal, pending asylum applicants, and, most importantly, to those with pending I-485 applications. USCIS also cut the Employment Authorization Document (EAD) validity to one year for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders, TPS applicants, refugee parolees, general parolees, and spouses of entrepreneur parolees under HR 1.
Joseph Edlow, the USCIS Director, said the move is a security upgrade. This comes as a direct response to the recent Washington, D.C. attack, where an Afghan national allegedly killed a National Guard member, triggering frequent vetting from the authorities.
However, immigration lawyers and applicants claim that the real danger is instability. In October, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) already ended the 540-day automatic EAD extension, removing the safety net that once protected workers from the inevitable processing delays.
Steven Brown, an immigration attorney, warned that C9 EADs, tied to pending green-card applicants, will now expire much faster and risk lapses in work authorization if USCIS slows down.
Attorney Emily Neumann echoed the sentiment of instability, saying the change forces more filings, which will increase backlogs, and will make people stop working even when they did everything right.
The USCIS is already burdened with thousands of cases every year, including marriage-based green cards from Indians as well. Thus, having such short EAD validity doesn’t offer much assurance to the community that their future work is safe.
