"Being out of work triggers a chain reaction: there's no income, there's no money for rent, there's no food." You're always worried," Umana told CBS News in Spanish. But that is also set to expire on April 14.Īs the sole provider for his two children, Umana said he's worried about losing his work authorization and driver's license, which is tied to his work permit. Because his permit expired, he's working as a roofer in the Miami area using the 180-day automatic work authorization extension. asylum, has been waiting for his work permit to be renewed for nearly a year. Jairo Umana, a political dissident from Nicaragua seeking U.S. "It's pretty unprecedented for the director of USCIS to say to the entire agency, to the entire workforce, 'Our processing times are too long, it's inhibiting us from delivering on our mission and so here are the goals that the entire agency is going to pursue and is going to achieve,'" the USCIS official said. family members or employers, within six months. citizenship, DACA renewals and green card requests for immigrants sponsored by U.S. Requests for work permits, travel documents and temporary status extensions or changes should be reviewed within three months.Īccording to the new processing guidelines, USCIS officers should adjudicate other applications, including those for U.S. The agency will instruct caseworkers to try to adjudicate requests for temporary work programs, such as H-1B and H-2A visas for agricultural workers, within two months. USCIS currently has several thousand job vacancies, according to agency data. USCIS' third measure includes hiring more caseworkers and improving processing technology to meet new timelines for adjudicating applications, which it believes it can achieve by September 2023. "We're regularly unable to adjudicate these renewals, not just by the expiration date, but by those 180 days past the expiration date," the USCIS official said. However, many immigrants are waiting for their work permit renewals longer than that, often beyond 10 months, USCIS figures show. The rule was recently submitted to the White House for review.Ĭurrently, most work permit holders who apply for renewals are eligible for an automatic 180-day extension if their authorization to work lapses. USCIS is also unveiling another rule to provide temporary relief to immigrants affected by the work authorization delays by extending the period of automatic work permit extensions for those who apply for a renewal, the senior agency official said. Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images naturalization ceremony in Irvine, California, on Thursday, December 2, 2021. "We can't just shift all our resources to premium filers, while everybody else suffers," the official said. The senior USCIS official said the phased implementation will ensure other applications are not delayed by the premium processing expansion, which was authorized by Congress in 2020, when the agency faced a fiscal crisis that threatened to furlough 13,000 employees. without having a job offer, which is typically required. Premium processing will expand gradually, starting with work-based green card petitions for multinational executives or managers and professionals with advanced degrees or "exceptional ability" who are requesting a waiver that allows them to immigrate to the U.S. The rule, set to take effect in 60 days, will expand premium processing to additional employment-based green card applications, all work permit petitions and temporary immigration status extension requests, allowing applicants to pay $2,500 to have their cases adjudicated within 45 days. Currently, the service is limited to certain applications, including H-1B petitions and some employment-based green card requests. "Every application we adjudicate represents the hopes and dreams of immigrants and their families, as well as their critical immediate needs such as financial stability and humanitarian protection." The new measuresĪmong USCIS's new measures is a rule to expand "premium processing," which allows certain applicants to pay $2,500 in extra fees to have their cases reviewed on an expedited basis. "USCIS remains committed to delivering timely and fair decisions to all we serve," USCIS Director Ur Jaddou said Tuesday. citizens - in a months- or years-long legal limbo that can force them to lose their jobs, driver's licenses and sources of income. The growing case backlog has dramatically extended application processing delays, trapping many immigrants - from asylum-seekers and green card applicants to would-be U.S.
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