Labor Crunch Fuels Pursuit of Expanded Immigrant Work Options

An influx of new migrants to the US, coupled with ongoing labor shortages, has brought elected officials, employers, and immigrant advocates together to press the Biden administration for expanded work permits to address both challenges.

Proponents of additional legal employment options for migrants have backed multiple solutions, which come amid a swell of migrant crossings along the southern US border. Some are calling for fixes to legal barriers facing asylum seekers, while others are pushing for a more novel extension of parole options to new groups of immigrants.

Both routes face political or legal obstacles to adoption.

With persistent gridlock in Congress on immigration, the urgent need for additional workers has led a broad and varied group of advocates to seek other legal employment options, said Leidy Perez, policy and communications director at the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project.

“This is not as much an immigration issue as a labor issue,” Perez said. “A lot of employers are begging for workers and there are all these logistical hurdles that people have to go through in order to begin working.”

Parole Authority

The Homeland Security Department has allowed more than half a million people to enter the US over the past year and a half from countries such as Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Venezuela using its parole powers. That authority allows the the agency to temporarily admit individuals to the US for urgent humanitarian or public benefit reasons.

The influx of new entrants into the labor force via humanitarian parole helped slow rising inflation over the past year.

A campaign spearheaded by the American Business Immigration Coalition has argued that the White House can use the same authority to grant immediate legal employment authorization to immigrants who would provide a “significant public benefit” to the US under the Immigration and Nationality Act, including recent arrivals and long-term undocumented residents.

The coalition—whose members include 1,400 business associations and business leaders, including executives from companies like Lowes and Crate and Barrel—said the effort emerged from frustrations over labor shortages across its members and a sense that polarization in Congress would stand in the way of further action on immigration.

“We’re saying, you’ve been able to stand up these programs for new migrants. At least treat long-term residents with the same dignity,” said ABIC executive director Rebecca Shi. “It’s politically smart and the right thing to do.”

With the national unemployment rate reaching a historic low of 3.4% in 2023—and states like Massachusetts (2.5%) and Pennsylvania (3.5%) reaching record lows—employers and elected officials have been desperate to find new workers.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, and Republicans like Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, whose states nearly matched previous low unemployment rates, have backed the concept along with scores of business leaders who have joined a campaign to have the administration expand parole options to long-term residents of the US without legal status.

“There’s a lot of restaurants that need three busboys but they’ve only got one because there’s not enough people,” said Sam Toia, CEO of the Illinois Restaurant Association. “We could address a lot of these issues if we got undocumented immigrants working permits.”

At Cambridge Caregivers, a Dallas-based in-home care provider, about 80% of workers are foreign-born, said CEO Adam Lampert. Immigrants tend to be overrepresented in occupations like landscaping, construction, and home care, he said, and expanding the labor force through options like parole and Temporary Protected Status would mean relief for employers. The unemployment rate in Texas, meanwhile, hasn’t exceeded 4.1% since early 2022.

“We’re crunched to hire people. We can’t find enough people,” Lampert said. “Taking incremental steps is the best we can hope for until there is enough pressure that our Congress members will pass more comprehensive immigration reform.”

DHS didn’t respond to a request for comment on the possibility of further uses of parole authority. The White House has said that Congress must address statutory wait times for other immigrants like asylum seekers to obtain employment authorization.

Reducing Wait to Work

While advocates are aiming to expand parole options, the Biden administration’s latest use of the tool for immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela is already facing a legal challenge from Republicans.

That lawsuit, brought by 20 GOP-led states, argues that the program is unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act because DHS failed to go through proper notice-and-comment rulemaking and exceeded its statutory authority by admitting migrants from those countries “en masse” rather than on a case-by-case basis. It also argued the 30,000 individuals from those countries eligible for parole each month would harm states by imposing new costs for social services.

Extending parole to additional immigrant populations like long-term residents would likely face similar court challenges, said Jennie Murray, president and CEO of the National Immigration Forum. With the extent of administrative parole powers still being tested, reducing hurdles to employment for immigrants in the asylum system should be prioritized, she said.

“We feel we need to maintain asylum as essential,” Murray said. “And Congress needs to open up other legal pathways for folks we desperately need.”

Limited alternatives for immigrants to enter the US—such as through employment-based visas—mean the asylum system is overburdened with claims, she said. While businesses are eager to hire new arrivals, asylum seekers aren’t eligible for work permits until their application has been pending for six months.

The Immigration Forum and groups including the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation, the Asylum Seekers Advocacy Project, and ABIC are backing House legislation (H.R. 1325) that would shorten the waiting period for employment authorization for asylum seekers from 180 to 30 days. That bill would also remove requirements to renew work permits while an asylum claim is pending. Twenty-four House members, although only one Republican, have signed on to support the legislation.

A similar bill (S. 255) in the Senate would require asylum seekers to use official points of entry to qualify for expedited work permits. Lawmakers’ attention in recent weeks, however, has been focused on negotiations that would pair funding for Israel and Ukraine with new measures tightening access to asylum and parole.

Amy R. Grenier, policy and practice counsel at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the House legislation is a promising and straightforward, bipartisan bill. But she said it’s tough for technical immigration fixes to get attention with politicians focused on the border.

“We’re waiting for a moment after this current discussion going on around the border and parole,” she said. “You’re not going to get any traction because all the action is being taken up by that.”

Administrative Fixes

Local and state elected officials have called on the Biden administration repeatedly in recent months to speed up approval of work permits or waive statutory wait times for specific regions.

Lawmakers in California meanwhile have passed legislation requiring the state to negotiate with federal officials to extend legal work options to undocumented farmworkers. And legislation in Maine would call for asylum seekers in the state to have the option to begin working immediately—a change that would require federal action first.

“There’s a sense of desperation from states,” said Sam Peak, a senior policy analyst at Americans for Prosperity.

ASAP’s Perez said agencies like DHS could also be taking administrative actions now to make sure immigrants can remain in the workforce.

Although applications for asylum seekers’ initial employment authorization documents have been processed speedily in recent months, there’s a growing problem with backlogs of work permit renewals. And a temporary rule last year granting asylum seekers an automatic 18-month extension for pending renewals expired in October, putting more pressure on that system.

“There are a lot of issues at every stage that prevent people from actually being able to get a physical work permit card so that they can start working,” she said.