Trump administration unveils plans to dramatically restrict work permits for asylum-seekers
CBSN
The Trump administration on Friday formally proposed a regulation that would dramatically restrict work permits for asylum-seekers, confirming a CBS News report about a plan to upend longstanding U.S. immigration policy.
The Trump administration on Friday formally proposed a regulation that would dramatically restrict work permits for asylum-seekers, confirming a CBS News report about a plan to upend longstanding U.S. immigration policy.
Since the 1990s, U.S. law has allowed immigration officials to grant work permits to asylum applicants if their cases have been pending for at least 180 days. That has generally allowed asylum applicants to request a work permit 150 days after they make their claim. Those eligible can be granted the permit after another 30 days.
But a proposed Trump administration regulation unveiled Friday would suspend the acceptance of asylum work permit applications until U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reaches the point where it decides all asylum cases within an average of 180 days.
That requirement would almost certainly amount to indefinite pause on asylum-related work permits, since the U.S. government faces a massive backlog of asylum applications. A federal government watchdog found in 2024 that more than 77% of the asylum applications before USCIS had been pending for beyond 180 days. Nearly 40% of applications remained unresolved after two years. USCIS is currently overseeing more than 1.4 million pending asylum applications, according to the agency.
The text of the regulation acknowledged such a pause could last for "many years," predicting that, without considering the proposed changes, it could take officials between 14 and 173 years to adjudicate asylum cases within an average of 180 days.
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