USCIS Work Authorization Renewal Delays Harming Asylum-Seekers Amid Nationwide Labor Shortage, Class Action Alleges [UPDATE]
Last Updated on March 4, 2022
Tony N. et al. v. U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services et al.
Filed: November 10, 2021 ◆§ 3:21-cv-08742
U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services and the Dept. of Homeland Security face a class action wherein asylum-seekers allege they’ve lost or will soon lose out on jobs due to unreasonable work authorization delays.
U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas Ur Jaddou
California
Case Updates
March 4, 2022 – Asylum-Seekers’ Work Authorization Class Action Dismissed
The proposed class action detailed on this page was dismissed without prejudice by U.S. District Judge Maxine M. Chesney on March 2, 2022.
Judge Chesney relayed in a three-page dismissal order that since each plaintiff’s application for renewal was approved subsequent to the filing of their lawsuit and would remain valid for 30 months from the date of renewal, the controversy at issue “no longer exists” as to the applications that were pending. The order says that although the plaintiffs argued that they will be subjected to allegedly unreasonable delays when they again might need to apply for renewal, the court feels that a prediction of “a recurrence that far in the future” amounts to only speculation.
Moreover, the court found that the apparent delays on part of U.S. Customs and Immigration Services were essentially situational, in particular due to operational and financial issues stemming from the pandemic.
“Under such circumstances, the Court finds plaintiffs have failed to ‘establish a demonstrated probability that the same controversy will recur involving the same litigants,’” the order states.
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United States Citizenship & Immigration Services and the Department of Homeland Security face a proposed class action wherein five asylum-seekers allege they’ve lost or will soon lose out on work amid a nationwide labor shortage due to unreasonable delays by USCIS in processing work authorization renewals.
The 33-page lawsuit alleges the plaintiffs are among a proposed class of asylum-seekers who USICS has already determined are authorized to work while their applications are in limbo. According to the complaint, USCIS and the DHS have nevertheless routinely taken longer than the codified 180-day time frame—and sometimes 10 months or more—to grant or deny an asylum applicant’s request for the renewal of employment authorization documents (EAD).
As a result of the delays, the plaintiffs—a truck driver, medical doctor, pregnant McDonald’s manager, Apple employee and behavior tech for children with special needs—and other asylum-seekers have lost, or will soon lose, their jobs, businesses, driver’s licenses, access to health insurance, professional certifications, ability to pay for basic necessities and other benefits, the lawsuit says. The case relays that the U.S. Labor Department reported in August 2021 that there were 10.4 million job openings as more and more individuals have decided to leave their areas of employment.
“Leading economic experts have long maintained that authorizing immigrants to work, like the asylum seeker plaintiffs here, can play a critical role in ameliorating labor shortages,” the complaint states, stressing that the plaintiffs work in essential industries for which the demand for labor is particularly high.
Per the suit, the DHS is aware of USCIS’s unreasonable delay in adjudicating EAD renewal applications—which do not grant temporary or permanent immigration status, and only act as proof of authorization to work in the U.S. for a certain period—yet has not taken sufficient steps to address the delays.
The suit says an EAD for an asylum applicant is typically valid for two years, and an applicant may apply to renew their EAD if their asylum application remains pending. According to the case, USCIS instructs applicants not to file for a renewal EAD more than 180 days before their original EAD expires.
As the lawsuit tells it, although USCIS had until recently consistently adjudicated EAD renewal applications by asylum applicants in fewer than 180 days, that deadline was more or less abandoned in December 2020, and processing times since then have continued to increase.
The complaint contends that the defendants’ pattern and practice of delays with regard to EAD renewal applications is part of “a series of policy changes over the last four years” that have unnecessarily burdened USCIS’s processes.
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