Work permits for all undocumented immigrants is asking too much
There is a movement gaining momentum among some progressives to pressure President Joe Biden to issue work permits to all undocumented immigrants in the U.S. — some 10.5 million people.
Mayor Brandon Johnson is the latest to join the effort, which also includes migrant advocacy groups, progressive lawmakers and some business groups.
The benefits they claim: These folks could finally work legally, and the move would help remedy labor shortages.
It’s also too big of an ask. The Biden administration should take a pass.
This editorial board has been an advocate for creating a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants who pass background checks and who have lived and worked in the U.S. for years. But such a move is up to Congress. Over the last two decades, attempts in Congress to modernize the U.S. immigration system, bring more order to the southern border and legalize millions of undocumented immigrants have been epic fails, mostly because of resistance by the far right.
The latest attempt at a piece of immigration reform was a bipartisan bill that was on track to become law, until Donald Trump stepped in and told GOP members of Congress to stand down.
Our immigration system sorely needs a fix. But asking the president to authorize work permits to millions of undocumented immigrants, including 500,000 in Illinois, is the wrong workaround — and might not withstand judicial scrutiny.
It also could motivate more migrants to head to the U.S., hoping that once here, they, too, would eventually receive work permits. That could easily sow more chaos at the southern border, parts of which have been overwhelmed at times by migrants from all over the world fleeing wars, persecution, economic collapse, poverty or climate change.
Yes, the U.S. needs immigrants as birthrates decline and people age out of the workforce. Current green card and work visa limits don’t line up with the demand for workers in agriculture, construction, landscaping, health care, the sciences and other industries. The ranks of unemployed Americans could fill some of those jobs, of course, but immigrants will still be needed to fill jobs that Americans have shunned.
Congress needs to get real about this. But polarizing politics and scare tactics that portray immigrants in a false light have kept Congress paralyzed.
Why push now for work permits for all undocumented immigrants? There has been growing resentment in some immigrant communities about newcomers seeking asylum and qualifying for work permits. The thinking is that asylum seekers have it easier than folks who crossed the border illegally or overstayed visas a generation ago and have had to work illegally.
But migrants who seek asylum are entitled to work permits under federal law as their cases are processed and adjudicated. They can work legally, unlike millions of longtime undocumented immigrants.
Here’s a caveat, though: Only about onethird of asylum seekers are expected to be granted permanent residency. The remaining two-thirds will eventually lose their work permits and, unless deported, become part of the undocumented population. That could take several years because of backlogs in the system, but it’s an inefficiency that should be addressed.
Soon, Biden is expected to make it more difficult for migrants to seek asylum in the U.S., an acknowledgment that the border is overburdened. Thus, the timing of this push for work permits for all undocumented folks couldn’t come at a worse time.
Advocacy groups believe Biden can authorize work permits through humanitarian or significant public benefit parole. But such broad application of parole would be unprecedented and would put Biden’s political survivability at risk during a crucial 2024 election season.
What can Biden realistically do?
Biden could take modest, yet significant, measures to give a smaller number of longtime undocumented immigrants a break. Such proposals are being sought by more than a dozen U.S. senators, including Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois.
First, Biden should create new protections for longtime undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. Formerly known as Dreamers, they qualified for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, under an executive order by President Barack Obama in 2012. That program is on the ropes because of rulings by conservative courts.
Some businesses that employ DACA recipients want to sponsor them for nonimmigrant work visas, such as an H-1B, in case the Supreme Court eventually abolishes DACA. The Biden administration can facilitate this and consider other avenues to allow people in DACA to keep receiving work authorization.
Second, though the public generally believes that undocumented immigrants who marry Americans can automatically obtain legalization, that’s not the case. As Durbin and other senators wrote to Biden last month, “Our outdated immigration system includes many categorical bars that prevent spouses from obtaining status.”
Ease those burdens if folks pass background checks and have been married for some time.
Third, the Biden administration should issue work permits to immigrants who are married to Americans and already have a pending green card case, which would make the current three-year green card processing backlog less onerous on families.
Instead of a drastic move, the Biden administration should take sensible steps to make it easier on smaller numbers of the undocumented.