On Wednesday, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced a proposed rule designed to “deter frivolous or fraudulent asylum seekers from obtaining work authorizations.”
USCIS proposes to:
- Prevent aliens who entered the United States illegally from obtaining work authorization based on a pending asylum application, with limited exceptions; and
- Automatically terminate employment authorization when an applicant’s asylum denial is administratively final.
- Clarify that an asylum applicant’s failure to appear for a required appointment may lead to dismissal of their asylum application and/or denial of their application for employment authorization;
- Prevent aliens who fail to file their asylum application within one year of their latest entry as required by law from obtaining work authorization; and
- Render any alien who has been convicted in the United States of any federal or state felony, or convicted of certain public safety offenses involving child abuse, domestic violence, or driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, ineligible for employment authorization.
This proposal is in response to the surge of economic migrants at the border who claiming credible fear and/or making asylum claims in order to gain entry into the U.S. interior, often to gain employment.
This proposed rule comes the same week as The Washington Times reported that over 600 hundred children were identified as passing through the border more than once, some as many as eight times, each time accompanied by different adults who sought to take advantage of laws that make it difficult for Border Patrol to detain family units for a period of time adequate to identify these individuals and process them through the court system before they are forced to release them into the United States.
