Due to the increasing immigration court backlog U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced in a press release that they will extend “the validity period for initial or renewal Employment Authorization Documents for asylum applicants from one year to two years”.
Asylum applicants are eligible to apply for work permits after their asylum petition has been pending for more than 150 days. As of Oct. 5, 2016 asylum seekers will be granted a two-year work permit. If the petitioner has not received a decision on their asylum case by then they can renew their work permit for another two years.
The reason for this year increase is because of the huge backlog of pending cases that immigration courts are facing. In June 2016 the backlog reached an all time high of 496, 704 cases.
The immigration courts saw a huge uptick in cases after the 2014 border surge and are still trying to catch up. As border crossings continue to surge again this year the courts are falling even more behind with some cases not set to be decided till 2020.
Read more on this story at The Daily Caller.
