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It's the weeds.
I'm Fabio Sinias sitting in this week for John Colin Hill.
My family has lived in New York City for a few generations.
In the late 1960s, my aunt secured a visa
to travel from Haiti to the United States.
Then, one by one, my other aunts and uncles,
grandparents and parents,
all made their way to the United States
and settled down in Brooklyn.
During this time, they fled the dictatorships
of Haitian leaders Fasoid Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude Duvalier.
Their entry back then wasn't without hiccups
or the fears around relocating your life to a new country.
Immigration has always been fraught,
but migrants today are facing a new set of challenges.
Never in my life have I had a problem
that I did not see in Indian too.
I don't see an Indian to this.
I don't see an Indian to this.
This issue will destroy New York City.
That's Mayor Eric Adams speaking about the influx
of asylum seekers to the city
at a town hall earlier this month.
Since April 2022, more than 115,000 migrants
have arrived in New York City.
Many of whom are seeking asylum
from political and economic hardships in their home countries.
Not unlike my family.
The city has said it is running out of space
and is on track to spend $12 billion
over the next three fiscal years.
The circumstances make it clear.
The US immigration system is broken.
The country desperately needs immigration reform
as humanitarian emergencies
from wars to dictatorships to climate change
through invulnerable populations.
Immigration courts are slammed
and immigrants have only narrow paths
to becoming permanent citizens.
Still, some advocates warn this is not a crisis,
though Adams's language might suggest that it is.
The city has been successfully absorbing migrants,
you know, since the earliest days of this country
almost.
That's Julia Gillette, an associate director
of the US Immigration Policy Program
at the Migration Policy Institute,
where she studies the implications
of local, state, and federal immigration policies.
We know that overall immigrants
integrate into the United States,
they see upward mobility over time,
their kids do even better than they do,
and immigration has been such a source
of strength for New York City.
Critics believe that there are clear steps
lawmakers can take to alleviate the burden on the city.
They could expedite work authorization
for asylum seekers, provide housing vouchers,
and better connect migrants with legal counsel.
In response to desperate pleas for help
from Adams and other Democrats,
the Biden administration announced
that nearly half a million Venezuelan asylum seekers
are eligible for temporary protected status or TPS,
a designation that would allow them to live and work
in the US for 18 months
without the threat of deportation.
Today on the weeds,
we dive into the migrant influx in New York City
to understand why it is happening
and how expedited work authorization
could change a lot for the city
and for migrants themselves.
But first, what is it about New York City,
where the cost of living is so high
and affordable housing is scant
that has drawn so many migrants in to begin with?
Here's Julia again.
I think it's a combination of factors.
We did see that Governor Abbott in Texas
was sending buses of migrants to New York City
as a political statement.
We also know that a lot of migrants
do have ties in New York City.
They may have friends or family or neighbors
that they're joining in New York City.
And New York City also has an international draw.
Migrants have seen it in movies and on TV shows
and they know that it's a city of opportunity
where a lot of immigrants have gone before
and so they may just choose to go there for that reason.
New York City also has something called a right to shelter.
A unique mandate that requires the city
to shelter anyone in need.
Under increasing pressure,
Mayor Adams recently issued a 60-day limit
on shelter stays for adult migrants without children.
A move that some experts say could put more migrants on the street.
It's also an attempt to deter other asylum seekers
who might want to travel to the city.
I asked Julia where this wave of migrants is coming from.
We've seen an enormous displacement of migrants
from Venezuela since the country has had
socialist leadership and the economy has tanked
and people are facing political repression
and extreme poverty and hunger in Venezuela.
There's been a huge push of people out of the country.
Many of those migrants have stayed in South America.
Colombia is hosting millions of Venezuelans
and other countries in the region are as well.
But many Venezuelans have also come to United States
and particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic,
some of the economies in South America have really been struggling
and Venezuelans there have had difficulties getting by.
Whereas the US economy has recovered really strongly
and has been really hungry for workers
and providing opportunities for new migrants that arrive.
Heady is facing its own set of really difficult conditions
right now.
There's tremendous gang violence.
The government isn't really functioning right now
and many, many people are needing to flee for safety.
There were also Haitians who were living in South America
as well who had left in earlier waves.
But again, because of the economic challenges,
decided to make a second move and come north towards the United States.
And the way it's being framed, it feels like this is an unprecedented moment
that this many people have never come to New York City
and in such large numbers.
Is that actually the case from your analysis?
That's a really good question and I don't know.
I guess I haven't seen the numbers to know if that's true.
But I would just have to imagine that in the Ellis Island days
there were more immigrants coming to New York City
and it was the gateway to the United States
for much of the world, particularly for Europe.
And there were just huge numbers of migrants
who were coming more recently.
We have seen periods of high numbers of arrivals
in the late 1990s in the early 2000s.
A lot of people were entering the US without authorization.
At that time more were staying kind of in the southwest of the United States
rather than making their way further north.
So I think we might need to look to further back history
to see kind of a comparable period.
But I don't know that this is so off trend
from kind of more recent years.
We know a lot of Central Americans have been coming
and they might not be settling right in Manhattan
but may have been going into communities in Long Island
and upstate New York and in New Jersey.
So I think the kind of New York region has been seeing
a lot of migrants for a while.
It does seem like now there are a lot of migrants coming
who don't have ties in the United States
and they don't have someone who's couched they could crash on
or who they can turn to to help them in their early months
when they're trying to figure out their way in the United States
and so they are turning to the government instead.
Right, and I feel like there have been reports lately
of police officers showing up to homes
where there are like two dozen migrants living in a house
and in response to that, Adams is calling on the federal government
and also the state government to help with moving
and relocating migrants to whether it's upstate
or to other states and regions.
Do we have precedent for that?
Are there other moments in US history when government
has led an effort to relocate migrants in a way
that doesn't seem as cruel as Abid or DeSantis flying them
up north or busing them up north?
I don't know if I've seen this kind of conflict between cities
and between states of trying to move migrants around
but we have seen in a much more orderly and coordinated way
is that when refugees are arriving to the United States
so refugees are already screened for their need for protection
and they arrive with status.
There's an orderly system where nonprofit organizations
and the governments and communities talk
and they decide where refugees who don't have US ties
should be placed and there's an effort to locate refugees
in cities where the cost of living isn't too high
where there are social service providers that can help them
where there might be other people from their countries
that have already settled and could maybe assist them
so there's kind of a thoughtful process
for locating refugees around the United States
for other migrants who show up on their own
it's always been up to them to decide where to settle
in the United States that with many migrants coming
who don't have strong ties and sort of are shopping around
and figuring out where to go.
Those are the migrants that might be open to taking a bus
that a city is providing for them or a state is funding
and they may or may not be open to relocating
once they kind of find an initial city to settle into.
So Adams has placed blame on a number of factors
mostly pointing fingers at the Biden administration
and the lack of comprehensive immigration reform from Congress
but he's also said that Trump administration policies
climate change, overwhelmed immigration courts
and the narrow paths that immigrants face
to becoming permanent residents are all factors
that are forcing cities to bear the load of supporting migrants
as they try to establish themselves here.
So from your perspective, how would you rank those factors?
Like is there truth to the fact that there are a lot of different areas
that could be doing more to help alleviate this pressure on cities?
There are a lot of contributing factors
and it all comes down to the fact that our immigration system is broken
but it's broken in all kinds of ways.
It's broken because we haven't updated our immigration laws since 1990.
There are a lot of employers who want to hire immigrant workers
and they're desperate for workers.
There are a lot of migrants who want to come and work in the United States
and our laws don't facilitate those connections and those pathways.
For people who don't have a college degree
and don't have a close family member in the United States,
there are almost no pathways for them to come and live in the United States
and so coming without authorization is their best option.
We also haven't really been focusing our refugee resettlement
on the Western hemisphere.
We have been admitting a lot of refugees from further abroad
from African countries, from Syria prior to the Trump administration
from European countries
that we haven't really focused on resettling refugees from the region
so there are a lot of people who are fleeing situations of violence and persecution
but they don't have access to that refugee resettlement system
so they come on their own as asylum seekers.
We also know that our immigration courts are severely backlogged
with millions of cases and people are waiting years and years
to have their cases resolved.
That sends the message that if you come to the United States,
you'll be let in because you are let in for years
while you wait for your immigration court date
and that sends kind of a misperception
about how open the United States is to new migrants.
So there are certainly a lot of ways that our system is broken
that are contributing to the high numbers of people
coming without visas to the US-Mexico border.
What about the effect of it on other people?
AOC led a talk in front of the Roosevelt Hotel
that's serving as an intake center for newly-arrived migrants
and she was just interrupted by a bunch of protesters
through a chanting close the border, close the border
and it seemed like these people were ready to fight
and I'm not sure how much of this is some kind of
a controlled way that people are trying to protest this
and make it seem bigger than it is
but there was another protest on Staten Island
with about 400 residents who came out to protest
a shelter.
Is there any worry that this could lead to violence
against migrants in New York City?
Things are getting really challenging in New York City
and there's such pressure between the service providers
that are struggling to meet migrants needs
and the migrants that are struggling to figure out
how to make their way in the United States
and then all the people observing this really messy process
and then you layer on that the national politics.
It's been a successful strategy for Republicans
to hammer the Biden administration on their failures
on immigration and at the more local level for politicians
to run on immigration issues and try to politicize this
so I think that that framing that happens
at the national level and in the news and in the media
can kind of amplify whatever is happening locally
and change how people interpret it.
It's really been a success, I think, of Governor Abbott.
He wanted to bust migrants to cities
that had labeled themselves sanctuary cities
to give them a sense of what border communities
were facing and the challenges that arise
when migrants arrive without planning
and present needs for basic services.
And New York City has played right into that.
They've really struggled to meet these needs
and they've joined Texas and criticizing the Biden administration
and talking about the challenges of arriving migrants
and emphasizing the negative impacts of immigration.
So I think that's really been beyond Governor Abbott's
wildest dreams probably of what his busing could do
and kind of how that could change the rhetoric.
So that's what's happening in New York City.
Up next, how the current work authorization process
may be worsening the crisis.
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Julie, we've talked about the number of migrants
arriving in New York City and how the US's
broken immigration system is not set up
to allow for smooth processes.
So I'd like to talk now about one solution
that lawmakers and immigration advocates
like yourself have been calling for,
and that's expedited work authorization.
The United States is experiencing a labor shortage.
Why can't migrants leave the United States
because they don't want to leave the United States
because they're experiencing a labor shortage?
Why can't migrants legally work as soon as they get here?
So how quickly people can work
depends on how they've come into the United States.
For people who are put into removal proceedings
and they're applying for asylum,
Congress has said that they have to wait 180 days
before they can get work authorization.
That was put into law so that work authorization
wasn't an incentive for people to come to the US
and file asylum applications.
The idea was that the government should be able
to adjudicate asylum claims within those 180 days.
And if it failed, then people should be able to support themselves
as those asylum cases took longer.
But right now it's taking four and a half years or more
for asylum cases to be completed.
So most asylum seekers are reaching those 180 days.
They're able to get work authorization
and they can work in the United States for years
before they get that yes or no answer
on their asylum claims.
For people who come to the US
through humanitarian parole,
so that's what's happening for Cubans, Haitians,
Nicaraguan and Venezuelans who have a US sponsor
that's also happening for people who make an appointment
at a port of entry through the new app
and come in,
they can apply for work authorization right away.
But it's taking the government four months
to decide on those work authorization applications.
And there are barriers to applying
to parolees have to pay $410 to apply for work authorization
unless they complete a really complicated fee waiver process
that has to happen on paper.
And we've heard that only a small share of people
who have come in through appointments at a port of entry
have actually applied for work authorization.
Only 20% have applied so far.
So it seems like people don't know about this process
or they're facing barriers to applying
because they have to apply through a government form
that's only available in English
and they may not know how to complete that process on their own.
Can you explain what humanitarian parole is?
The executive branch has the right
to let people in through something called humanitarian parole
if they're facing an urgent humanitarian situation
and on a case-by-case basis,
the government decides to let them into the United States
even though they don't have a valid visa for entry.
This has been used in a lot of different ways over time.
This is how we allowed in people coming after the fall of Saigon,
after the Vietnam War.
This is how the over 70,000 Afghans
who were evacuated to the United States came in.
This is the status being given to Ukrainians
that come through the Uniting for Ukraine program.
The people with parole don't have permanent legal status in the US.
They don't have a path to citizenship.
They can stay and they can work,
but they're only here on a temporary basis.
Is there a specific timeline for how temporary that is?
It depends on the specific parole grant for the CHNV parole
for the parole for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelans.
That's a two-year grant of parole
for people making the appointments at the court of entry
that's also a two-year grant of parole.
Can you talk about this idea that some migrants
are making false asylum claims?
That's been a reason why Congress hasn't wanted to make changes
to the laws around how long it takes for a migrant
to receive work authorization.
I think what's much more common than people making false claims
is that people are fleeing some kind of dangerous situation
that may not qualify them for asylum.
Our asylum laws are very specific.
They recognize persecution for very specific reasons.
So if somebody is fleeing general violence in their community,
they might have a real and urgent humanitarian need,
but they might not qualify for asylum,
or depending on which immigration judge they face
if they're facing domestic violence or gang violence,
their asylum claims may or may not be recognized.
There may be people who are filing for asylum only
to get work authorization.
anecdotally, I've heard of that the most when someone
actually doesn't know how our immigration laws work.
They go to a lawyer.
The lawyer says I can get you work authorization
and then what that lawyer does or notario does is file for asylum
even though the person doesn't know that they're filing an asylum claim.
There may be some migrants who know that they don't qualify for asylum.
They just want to come and work and they file for work authorization.
But I think it's much more common that people have a need for protection,
but they may or may not actually qualify for asylum at the end of the process.
How many migrants are waiting on work authorization right now?
And by that, I mean, how many have already applied for work authorization
and are waiting for a response from the government?
We know that there are 1.6 million applications pending
for employment authorization.
Some of those are people who came across the border.
Some of those are a wide variety of other people
and other kinds of circumstances that also need to apply for work authorization.
For people who have humanitarian parole, the wait is about 4 months.
For people who are applying for asylum, the wait is about 2 months.
The Biden administration did say that they are going to work to expedite
that work authorization for paroleese.
They said they're planning to get to an average processing time of 30 days.
So we'll have to see if they're able to reach that shorter timeline.
So I want to come back to that, but I do want to hear a little bit more
about the background for our work authorization laws
and just what was going on in 1996 around that time for Congress
to want to create that time restriction.
In 1996, there was kind of a general push to strengthen immigration
enforcement and also to narrow some of the pathways that were seen
as creating loopholes for migrants to come to the United States.
There had been periods when people were filing for asylum just
in order to get work authorization.
And so there was a sense that if there was this 180-day wait
that could reduce that incentive for applications
that were purely seeking work authorization rather than really seeking asylum.
And do lawmakers believe that the delay will force migrants
to rethink their decisions across the border
and to what you've mentioned before it?
It almost seems like we have seen that play out.
I don't know for sure, but I would really question how many migrants
who are coming to the border know that if they apply for asylum
and wait 180 days, they can get work authorization.
Some of that news might be traveling back,
but I think the broader message that if you come to the border
you may be removed, but you may be led into the United States.
And if you're led in, you'll be allowed to stay for years
while you wait for your immigration court case.
To proceed, I suspect that that is kind of the bigger message
that people are receiving and kind of the nitty-gritty
of how you get work authorization maybe lost, you know,
across all of the many things that people are thinking about
as they make migration decisions.
So lawmakers, including Mayor Adams, New York Governor,
Kathy Hocal, and lawmakers in cities like Chicago and Boston
have all called on the federal government to expedite work permits
and the federal government did take action.
Biden announced that nearly half a million Venezuelan migrants
who came to the U.S. by July 31st will receive temporary protected status
which will allow them to live and work legally
in the United States for 18 months.
So how do you see this playing out on the ground?
Like does this mean that things are going to be fixed instantly
or do Venezuelans have to go through the same process that existed before?
But now there's just a change in how long they have to wait.
Without further changes, this actually won't help people
get work authorization any faster, I don't think.
If Venezuelans who are in the U.S. already have humanitarian parole
or have already applied for asylum,
that might be a faster path to work authorization than applying for TPS.
So U.S. citizenship and immigration services has enormous backlogs,
millions and millions of various kinds of applications,
and they are really struggling to get through all of them.
So there are long delays in adjudicating all kinds of applications,
including TPS applications.
Right now, they're taking 20 months to adjudicate TPS applications
from Venezuelans.
That's even before this new grant.
And that's more time than the TPS grant length.
TPS is valid for 18 months. They're taking 20 months.
The government under the law could be issuing work authorization
documents to people who apply for TPS.
As soon as that person has applied and the government sees
that that application looks to be valid on its face.
But generally the government is waiting until they're pretty far along
in processing that TPS application before they approve the work authorization.
So while there's a two month wait for work authorization,
once you apply for asylum seekers,
and there's a four month wait for paroleese,
it seems like the wait for TPS applicants is longer,
maybe six or eight or 12 months.
So without further changes,
it's not actually clear how this helps.
It would help Venezuelans who are in the US,
who haven't applied for asylum and don't have parole.
Now they have a clear status.
They can apply for that will give them work authorization.
But I'm very curious to see if we see further changes coming
from the Biden administration.
It seems like this TPS grant was in response to the governors
and mayors who have been calling for it.
And so they might be thinking right now about what else they can do
to try to get those TPS applicants,
their work authorization faster.
And we might see other changes coming,
at least it seems like that would be politically important to do,
to be responsive to those calls from local officials.
Is this move akin to basically putting a mandate over a problem?
Like how does this help us in the long run?
I think so in a couple of ways,
the delays in processing applications of any kind.
This is a huge challenge for the government.
It's a huge challenge for our immigration courts.
It's a huge challenge for US citizenship and immigration services.
They need vastly more resources to be able to get through their work loads.
They also probably need to find much more efficient ways of operating
to get through their work loads.
And this all has really big implications for immigration
because it creates these big backlogs that send mixed messages
to migrants about what's available in the United States.
And also delays people's ability to work.
The TPS isn't going to address the fact
that many migrants are coming to the US-Mexico border
without legal status in the United States.
There are such enormous push factors in the region right now,
and we have a really strong economy,
and all of that is leading a lot of people to come.
And whether or not there's TPS,
whether or not work authorization comes in two months or four months
or 12 months, you know,
I don't think it's really going to change what's happening at the border.
And the fact that many migrants are showing up to the United States
and needing assistance.
So I'm curious about who's falling through the cracks here.
When we have Biden, you know, giving Venezuelans TPS,
and we have folks who are coming in through humanitarian parole,
like who are the people who are not receiving an opportunity
to get expedited employment authorization?
Some of the people who have come across the border in recent years
may have access to TPS and others.
Many others will not.
Some migrants are getting parole through various channels
and others are not.
There's also the long-term resident unauthorized immigrant population
in the United States.
We have an estimated around 11 million unauthorized immigrants
in the US.
Most of them have been here for 10 years or more.
And most of those folks don't have any access to legal status.
And they likely are unable to apply for asylum at this point
because there's a one-year filing deadline.
They don't have access to any of these new parole programs.
Some of them have access to TPS through really old TPS designations,
but most of them don't.
And they don't have the right to work in the United States.
They do face that threat of deportation.
And most of them have no way to get in line for any kind of legal status
in the United States.
So can you comment on how the local economy stands
to gain or maybe even be hurt by migrants working legally sooner?
I mean, we know that a lot of migrants do work without work authorization.
But those jobs tend to be low-paying jobs.
And you know, there's a high risk of exploitation
when someone doesn't have work authorization.
We hear about migrants who are being paid below minimum wage
who have their wages stolen, who face other challenges.
When migrants have work authorization, they can earn more money.
If they're arriving to the US with skills and credentials,
they can make use of those.
Without work authorization, people are generally working in restaurants
or in construction or cleaning buildings
or other kind of entry-level jobs.
If they have work authorization and they have skills
that they can transfer to United States,
they can find their way into professional jobs.
And even without professional skills,
they can earn higher wages.
That all benefits the government in the sense
that migrants are generally paying taxes,
whether or not they have work authorization,
they're generally paying taxes.
But when they earn more, they can pay higher taxes and contribute more.
They're also just able to support themselves better and less likely
to have to rely on the government for support.
So in the past 15 years, Congress hasn't been able to agree
on how to update the country's immigration laws.
We have seen some movement with Biden's recent announcement,
allowing Venezuelans to get temporary protected status.
But do you think that something will change soon
as a result of what's happening in New York City?
Unfortunately, the safe money is always on Congress
being unable to tackle immigration.
We're seeing Congress struggle to even pass the budget
much less tackle contentious issues like immigration.
And there's not broad agreement on what the solutions are.
Some would like to close the border,
which is not possible under current laws.
Some would like to offer a path to legal status
for unauthorized immigrants.
Some would like to really restrict our asylum system.
And we're just seeing that the two sides are so far apart
on these issues that it's really difficult
to agree on even really narrow reforms to immigration.
So how much of Congress's inaction is based on xenophobia?
It seems like lawmakers on both sides of the aisle fare
that reducing wait times for work permits
will encourage more migrants to cross the border illegally.
What do you think about that fear?
And is there xenophobia in that?
I think in our politics, there are a lot of arguments
that are framed around a fear of cultural change.
Whether or not that xenophobia, you know,
a lot of the opposition to migration seems not so much based on facts,
but rather a feeling that immigration is changing our country
and changing the opportunities available to us foreign people.
The reasons that people are leaving their homes
and the reasons that they're choosing the United States
as a destination are so overwhelming that whether or not migrants
can work quickly or work after a long wait
is probably a pretty small factor in their decision making.
And I guess folks who are skeptical about the value of immigration
or think that immigration presents a threat to our way of life
might be seizing on work authorization
or other aspects of immigration just as a way
to oppose immigration at all.
And we know that there are some voices
that don't even want legal immigration.
They may not even want high school immigration
to the United States much less kind of a welcoming attitude
or welcoming policies for people who are coming
without advanced permission.
Is there just one solution or one change that you think Congress
or the Biden administration can make to make things easier
for cities like New York City?
I'm not sure if I could settle on one.
Maybe three.
Sure, three is great.
I mean, one is that there should be more federal support
for cities, more funding.
This year there is an $800 million fund that's available
for cities and nonprofit organizations to apply for reimbursement
for services that have been provided to migrants.
The future of that funding is uncertain
as the rest of our federal budget is uncertain
but that funding hasn't been sufficient
and really important at the level that it was.
A second thing is I think there just needs to be more coordination.
A lot of migrants who are arriving may be open to other destinations
and they may be better able to get by in places
where the cost of living is lower.
Many people will want to go where they know someone
or where they have a community that they can join
but for people who are open to other locations,
there probably should be more coordination
to help people into places where they could be successful
and where the community can support them.
And then third, Congress needs to update our immigration laws.
If we could create a work pathway for employers
to sponsor workers across the skills spectrum
where we really need workers,
then that would create a legal avenue for people to come
with work authorization, with legal status,
with an employer ready to hire them.
And they would be set up for success in the country
and that could take the pressure off of the border.
Julia, thank you so much for your time.
Thank you so much for having me.
The immigration system can be a lot to navigate.
After the break, we'll sit down with someone
who helps folks figure it out every day.
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There's a big difference between talking and reporting,
especially right now with a fire hose worth of news coming your way.
You know what helps? Having reporters in the field.
I'm Brad Milky from ABC News,
and that's what we've got on ABC's daily podcast Start Here.
Every morning, Start Here takes you across the country
and around the world for a quick, smart look at the stories
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and sometimes, gasp, news can even be fun.
So let's meet up tomorrow morning, listen to Start Here,
wherever you get your podcasts.
It's the weeds. I'm Fabio Sineas,
sitting in for John Quill and Hill.
New York and other big cities are dealing with an influx of migrants.
It can be hard to understand something like this from a bird's eye view.
So let's zoom in on someone who knows this issue firsthand.
My name is Kairlas Talasa,
and I'm the managing director of the immigration practice at the Bronx defenders.
I just want to talk about how you help migrants
and immigrants check their eligibility for work authorization.
What does that look like and where do you even start?
So the first thing that it's important to highlight is that
there's not a way to obtain work authorization as a standalone benefit.
You can only get work authorization if you're eligible
to some form of relief or have received some type of permission
to be in the United States.
Only then you can file an employment authorization application.
So while we're first interviewed,
it's a deep dive into the person's family history, immigration history,
physical mental health history of themselves,
their family members, any contacts with any other systems,
all of that informs our determination of whether that person might be eligible for some relief.
And then that determines when and whether they are eligible to apply for employment authorization.
Have you found that migrants are aware of the US's work authorization process
or maybe some of them know that they can get work authorization
but don't necessarily know how to go about seeking it?
Some people are aware and they don't know how to do it themselves
or they don't have the language skills to do it
because they don't speak English, can fill out the forms.
There was also an indication last night in the communication issues
by the Department of Homeland Security that they believed that many people
who have been granted parole are not aware that they are eligible
for an employment authorization document.
I'm not sure that's exactly what's happening.
It might be true that some people are unaware.
But also the problem there is that people are granted parole perhaps for a year.
So they're only eligible for an employment authorization for that year,
the duration of parole.
And in our experience, the government has been very hesitant to renew that parole
and employment authorization applications can take a year to be educated.
So by the time that we meet people that might be eligible based on parole,
their parole is about to expire and they won't even have time to file an application
and have it adjudicated how the card issued to them and be able to use it.
So I don't know if the issue really is like people not knowing as much as it is.
The system not being meaningful in providing people an opportunity to apply
for an employment authorization document.
So I want to back up a little bit to just kind of understand how work authorization
has happened, right?
Because we've heard Governor Hulkel, we've heard Mayor Adams basically beg the federal government
to expedite work authorization.
But I didn't respond it and said that Venezuelans will get temporary protected
status in order to expedite work authorization.
So can you talk a little bit about the 180 days?
Is that from when they're seeking asylum?
Who does that apply to?
And is it actually just 180 days in a lot of cases?
The 180 days is a moment in which asylum applicants are eligible for an employment authorization.
At about 150 days, they can submit the application and get the process started.
But that initial application takes about a month for asylum seekers, sometimes a little bit longer.
Then you have TPS, temporary protected status.
For folks in that category, it's taking, I will say, over a year or sometimes two years
for the employment authorization document to be approved and issued.
And sometimes we've had some clients who was employment authorization expired
while they have another one that I renewal pending.
Just like they have like successive applications pending because they keep expiring.
How do they even keep track of this?
And is that basically your role to help them stay on top of this and keep track of these various applications?
For the people we represent, we keep track and we advise them when they have to come back for a renewal.
Renewals are much slower.
The initial application, the turnaround is quite quick.
Then they renew all that could take another year.
There is an automatic extension of that application if they file in a timely way.
But you can imagine that life can get on the way of people.
Sometimes people are not, like if they're not represented by counsel, they might miss it or they might not find anyone to help them.
And when people lose, like they have, when they have an employment authorization, then they lose it because it expired
and they were not able to renew it on time.
Like they usually lose their job.
So it's a very difficult situation.
So I'd love to hear more about what it's like for you and your organization to basically work with migrants through this process.
Like what kind of roadblocks do you all tend to run into when you're trying to help migrants apply for authorization?
Many people are having a hard time obtaining government issued IDs.
To be able to include them, include a copy of them in the work authorization, that's a requirement.
You can imagine when people have traversed how the continent been shuffled from the border.
Sometimes they can send their will in buses and then put through a very complex asylum system that keeps getting them out and having them reenroll.
So a lot of documents get lost and we've experienced an issue with city respite centers where people are living temporarily where they won't provide people like certification of address.
So they can even get like a city ID for their application.
So that is posing some some difficulties.
Additionally, for people who are renewing their application, there is a four hundred and ten dollars filing fee.
For people who are renewing a base on asylum or people who are submitting their initial application on other basis, there's a pretty hefty filing fee and sometimes it's very difficult to obtain the documentation to waive that filing fee.
Or to of course gather the money when you're not able to work or like art any way living in very precarious circumstances.
I would love to hear more about what other parts of the application, what does the application look like, what are they expected to what also they expect it to complete as part of the application.
The application is quite simple, if you're trained and you understand English, it's just biographical information, some questions about that type of application that forms the basis for their employment authorization.
So they're applying because they're eligible for asylum or because they have been granted TPS or parole that type of information and then you have to also submit the evidence.
It's not a lengthy application, but it's very confusing if you're not an expert in immigration law.
So is there a part of the work authorization process that people aren't talking about enough, some maybe it's something that you have to do for clients that people aren't aware of or something that they experience as they wait or maybe even after they get authorized.
I think the fact that the weights are pretty extensive, it's something that is not well understood and also that there's no way to just file an application that is not like go to the post office and get your employment authorization, you need to have another basis.
And the law is very stacked against immigrants and a lot of them will lose their eligibility for their employment authorization as their case progresses.
And sometimes we've had clients who get stuck in a process where they lost their eligibility for employment authorization, but their case is still on appeals.
So they have to go back to living in the United States without employment authorization is not very linear.
Another aspect that is not being considered, if people live in shelters and so many of the shelters are forcing people to leave after 60 days and then come back, there is a really high risk of people's documents being lost in the mail.
And that to me is very concerning that people are not going to receive their documents.
If we represent them, we usually ask for the document to come to our office.
If that's okay with our clients, but a lot of people are going to be served by models that are not full representation, like they're not connected permanently to an attorney.
Some people are, I feel like they're going to lose their card even if they disconnected from their residents that were in the moment of filing, then they might lose their card.
So you mentioned earlier that there might not be an immediate impact of the Biden's announcement that they would expand TPS.
But what about long term impacts? Like do you still think in the long run that this is a solution to the problem or will it be just more of a temporary bandaid for it?
Definitely a temporary bandaid. It's a temporary bandaid that sadly will likely stay as a temporary measure as a stopgap without a replacement.
That's what we've seen with many other countries that have been granted TPS.
And then there hasn't been a meaningful movement to allow people to obtain more secure status.
And people are very vulnerable in their TPS status. They need that administration that is in power decides to redesign their country every number of years.
And that is very subject to political turmoil and changes in administration is very, it's a very precarious status is not a permanent solution.
It's I think a great start, but there needs to be a more comprehensive way of looking at people and people's cases on the on the law.
And there's many things that can change that will expand our interpretation of who's eligible for asylum, for example, the way that our immigration agencies have interpreted incredibly narrow way.
That doesn't need to be that the case and that doesn't need action from Congress to change.
And there's many other things that this administration has this question to improve in order to expand benefits and in order to provide avenues for people to access a more secure immigration status and eventually citizenship.
Yeah, I'm glad you said that because that's my next question like what would you like to see in terms of support from federal and city government state governments like what are those avenues of things that they can open to support migrants to becoming US citizens more quickly or at all.
What I will say is that I would like to see a system that values people equally and values people right to movement and to belong in their communities and with their families and that doesn't punish people because they came here seeking protection or because they came here for financial reasons or because they after being here were
police and surveilled in a way that resulted in criminal convictions and now there are in that ineligible for certain benefits.
I will like an approach that values the full humanity of our community members and allows them to remain in the United States permanently.
So I have a final two part question what would you say to the people who are calling this moment a crisis and what do you think folks outside of New York City should understand about this issue.
This is not a crisis.
This is a moment where a lot of people are coming we've seen this in the past.
This guy is not falling we have enough resources for everybody and it is very difficult to see this rhetoric of scarcy being used weaponized against people who need support to get on their feet and while they integrate into their communities rejoin their families who have been living here and you know have a right to be here.
And there's no harm that comes from that and there's no there's no real scarcy.
We are a very rich city in a very rich country which will prioritize human dignity on our communities over anything else really.
Carla thank you for being with us today.
Thank you for having me.
That's all for us today.
Thank you to Julia Gillette and Carla Oselasa for joining me.
Our producer is Sophie LaLonde Christian Ayala engineered this episode Serena Sol and fact checked it our editorial director is Am Hall.
And I'm your host for today Fabiola Sineas.
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Help us keep it free by going to Vox.com slash give.
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