The Biden administration's move to make it easier for illegal immigrants to obtain federal work documents appeased elected Democratic leaders in sanctuary cities but drew backlash from the GOP for creating another "magnet" for illegal border crossings.
The Department of Homeland Security announced late Wednesday it would allow and fast-track work documents for nearly half a million Venezuelan illegal immigrants and countless others who have not sought asylum but were released into the country. The move came months after city leaders in Chicago and New York City begged President Joe Biden to amend the immigration process so that immigrants in city shelters could find work and, in turn, obtain housing on their own and leave shelters.
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Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) denounced the change and described it as being more likely to entice people outside the United States to travel to the southern border under the impression the Biden administration is welcoming noncitizens who violate federal laws. This, he said, would lead to more illegal immigration and compound the problem.
"When Biden tells migrants 'do not come to the US' and then creates a magnet like work permits, it undermines all deterrence. #BidenBorderCrisis," Cornyn wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Certain New York City Council members were enraged by the announcement. Councilwoman Inna Vernikov, a former Democrat who joined the Republican Party in 2021, said the city has no reason to keep its more than 200 immigrant shelters open because advocates insisted immigrants would find jobs and housing if given a faster way to get work permits.
"If granting TPS to migrants and 'asylum seekers' is the solution to ending the migrant crisis, and yesterday the federal government provided the 'solution', let's get rid of the shelters," Vernikov wrote in a statement on X.
Democrats and Republicans on the New York City Council's Common Sense Caucus lambasted the move as "incentivizing more migrants to come here," which would "exacerbate" the crisis in the city. More than 116,000 immigrants have sought assistance from the city over the past 18 months, according to New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
"If New York City has learned anything over the past 18 months, it is this: The federal government has no interest in securing our borders nor taking any responsibility for the immigration disaster it has created," the Common Sense Caucus said in a statement on Thursday morning. "This migrant crisis will only end when the city stops providing limitless benefits on the taxpayers' dime to anyone and everyone who shows up here on a bus."
America First Legal, a nonprofit group founded by former Trump-era White House officials, called into question the length of time illegal immigrants will be protected under temporary protected status.
"Do you get their scheme yet? Allow hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens into the United States, then grant 'Temporary Protected Status' and issue work permits and let them stay," AFL wrote on X. "But there's nothing 'Temporary' about it."
Democrats put pressure on Biden to act earlier this year. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and other New York Democrats sent a letter to Biden in May and called on him to help immigrants get jobs above the table.
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) touted the announcement as a win following her efforts lobbying the White House, as did Adams, who is a Democrat but has been glaringly outspoken against the Biden administration's handling of the border.
"After my productive conversation with last night, I'm grateful the federal government has acted so speedily to grant one of our top priorities: providing Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelan migrants & asylum seekers who have already arrived in this country," Hochul wrote on X on Thursday.
Adams thanked Biden in a statement and added that he spoke with the White House late Wednesday about changes he has called for since April.
The DHS announcement was two-pronged — focused on Venezuelans already in the country and immigrants who did not cross the border illegally but came through ports of entry as a result of using the CBP One phone app.
In fact, immigrants who enter the U.S. illegally by walking between the land ports of entry and claim asylum will see no change to the six-month wait for work permits. The DHS noted that "only Congress can change the law to allow asylum seekers to get work authorization sooner than six months after filing their claim."
The DHS used its limited legal authority to affect the largest number of immigrants possible by renewing the TPS designation for Venezuela.
Between July 2021 and July 2023, more than 325,000 Venezuelan immigrants were apprehended by Border Patrol. The Border Patrol does not disclose how many of the 325,000 were released into the U.S.
However, any Venezuelan citizen who illegally entered the country before July 31, 2023, will be eligible to apply for TPS, which comes with the benefit of a temporary permit to work anywhere in the country.
Congress created TPS in 1990 as a way to help people from countries that had been seriously harmed by armed conflict, famine, or natural disaster from being deported from the U.S. Countries could request TPS status from the U.S. government at any time, and if approved, their citizens in the U.S. could apply for 18-month reprieves from deportation and permits to work.
Venezuela was first approved for TPS in March 2021 and was renewed on Wednesday.
"As a result, an additional approximately hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan nationals across the country will be immediately eligible to apply for work authorization," DHS said.
Second, immigrants who used Customs and Border Protection's app to schedule an appointment at the border and were paroled into the country will begin to see faster processing of work permits.
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"[U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] will dedicate additional personnel and implement improvements to decrease the median processing time for these applications from 90 days to 30 days," the DHS stated in the announcement. "USCIS will also work to decrease median processing times for EAD applications associated with the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan parole processes to 30 days."
Work permits for parolees could be valid for up to five years compared to the previous two-year limit, which the department said would eliminate the need for immigrants to reapply every couple of years.