Trump Administration Moves to Pause Work Permits for Asylum Seekers

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services plans to temporarily stop issuing work permits to asylum seekers — a pause that could last decades, the agency announced on Friday.

The proposed change, which could go into effect later this year, would cut off access to an avenue that allows millions of immigrants to work legally while awaiting a decision on their asylum claims. The proposed rule is another step the Trump administration has taken to leverage USCIS to cut off immigrants from visas, green cards, work permits and other immigration benefits as President Donald Trump pushes to limit legal and unauthorized immigration.

The agency in charge of legal migration pathways wants to stop issuing work permits if the processing time for granting asylum is longer than 180 days. But getting the processing time down to 180 days “may take between 14 and 173 years” depending on how much the rule change reduces asylum applications, the proposed rule states.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in a Friday press release that the change was meant to stop exploitation of the asylum process.

“Aliens are not entitled to work while we process their asylum applications,” the DHS spokesperson said. “The Trump administration is strengthening the vetting of asylum applicants and restoring integrity to the asylum and work authorization processes.”

From April to June, USCIS approved 355,765 initial work permits for asylum seekers and denied 42,385, according to the latest data available from the agency. In the fiscal year 2024, more than a million immigrants with pending asylum applications received employment authorization.

The change would not affect asylum seekers trying to renew their work permits. The Trump administration also shortened the employment authorization period for asylum seekers and other immigrants from five years to 18 months.

“Asylum seekers need to work while their cases are pending – they need to support themselves, their families, and their local communities,” said Swapna Reddy, co-executive director of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project. “For asylum seekers, being able to work is a key part of being able to seek asylum at all – to be able to put a roof over your head and pay for food while you contribute to your local community.”

Currently, immigrants applying for asylum aren’t eligible to apply for a work permit until 180 days after USCIS receives their asylum paperwork. Under the proposed rule, they would have to wait a year, and the agency is extending the time it has to process work permit applications from 30 days to 180.

The changes mean that asylum seekers would have to wait up to a year and a half to receive a work permit if USCIS doesn’t pause the process. However, the agency anticipates the rule would result in an “initial and potentially lengthy pause.”

The public has 90 days to submit comments on the proposed rule, and it will take another 90 days after the new rule goes into effect for USCIS to determine if the wait time warrants a continued pause on approving new work authorizations.

Since the beginning of the second Trump administration, USCIS has become another enforcement tool for the government’s stated focus of rooting out fraud in the immigration system. In December, USCIS announced changes to a program for immigrant victims of domestic violence that advocates told NOTUS could leave survivors at risk of deportation.