DHS to end Biden’s automatic renewal of migrants’ work permits; new rule increases vetting

The Department of Homeland Security’s immigration agency established a new rule Wednesday requiring all migrants to undergo a full revetting before their work permits can be renewed.

That rolls back a Biden-era policy that had allowed renewals even without the checks being completed.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which shared the new regulation first with The Washington Times, said the Biden policy had granted unprecedented leniency and had introduced new national security vulnerabilities.

Under that policy, migrants’ whose work permits were expiring were granted an automatic 540-day renewal once they filed a new application, but before USCIS performed any of its verification checks to make sure the person was still entitled under the program, and still had a clean record.

USCIS Director Joseph Edlow said his agency, under President Trump’s orders, is putting a new emphasis on the vetting of aliens, and his new policy delivers on that.

“It’s a commonsense measure to ensure appropriate vetting and screening has been completed before an alien’s employment authorization or documentation is extended,” he said. “All aliens must remember that working in the United States is a privilege, not a right.”

Work permits, officially known as Employment Authorization Documents or EADs, are seen as a Holy Grail in the immigration world. They not only open up opportunities for legal jobs, but are often a proxy for some tentative legal status.

Holders can get Social Security numbers and driver’s licenses and obtain some taxpayer benefits. Immigration officers will sometimes even accept an EAD as proof of status.

A wide range of migrants with less than permanent status can apply for work permits, including those with firm legal status — such as spouses of guest workers — and those without, such as asylum-seekers, “Dreamers” here under the DACA program, and those granted Temporary Protected Status.

Ian Roberts, the illegal immigrant recently arrested and fired from his job as superintendent of public schools in Des Moines, Iowa, had previously held work authorization.

So had Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the man charged with a Molotov cocktail attack earlier this year on a pro-Israel demonstration in Boulder, Colorado. 

Homeland Security said he overstayed his visa but applied for asylum in 2022, and through that application — even though he hadn’t yet been approved for asylum — had been granted a work permit and then the automatic 540-day renewal.

“This attack by an alien against peaceful demonstrators highlights the critical need and urgency to ensure that aliens are not provided immigration benefits in the United States without thorough vetting and more frequent determinations of continued eligibility and, when applicable, determinations that the alien continues to merit a favorable exercise of discretion,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says in a regulatory filing in the Federal Register describing her new policy.

She said automatic renewal “provides a significant benefit to aliens without adequate vetting.”

Work permit applications have exploded in recent years, in large part due to President Biden’s lenient approach to immigration enforcement.

USCIS recorded 3.5 million initial applications and 1.3 million renewals in fiscal 2024, the last full year under Mr. Biden.

By contrast in 2020, the last full year in Mr. Trump’s previous administration, there were fewer than 2 million applications received.

The new policy doesn’t change the initial approval of EADs, which had always required vetting.

But since EADs have expiration dates, they need to be renewed if the migrant is still in the U.S. without a more permanent status, which is where the revetting comes into play.

Ms. Noem said the Biden administration got so overwhelmed with cases that it was unable to do all the vetting in time. Its answer was to take an already existing 180-day automatic renewal and triple it, resulting in the 540-day policy.

Then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said it would help migrants maintain their jobs, and give businesses continuity in their workplaces.

Ms. Noem, in her new policy, ditches both the 540-day extension and the previous 180-day automatic extension.

She said migrants who want to renew their work permits should apply ahead of time to make sure they meet deadlines.

But she also said there’s less of a chance of USCIS missing its own deadlines because Mr. Trump has done such a good job of cutting down on illegal immigration, which has reduced the workload.

Actual processing times vary widely depending on the type of status, ranging from about a month for an initial approval for someone with a pending asylum application to more than 10 months for an EAD for someone seeking a suspension of deportation or cancelation of removal.

Wednesday’s policy is in the form of an interim final rule.

That means it will take effect for all applications submitted Oct. 30 and thereafter. The usual notice and comment period follows afterward rather than coming in advance.

Ms. Noem said the security risks of granting EAD renewals without full vetting justify not having notice and comment come first.

She pointed to the Colorado attack as evidence.

She also said if she had allowed notice and comment, USCIS would have been flooded with renewal applications by migrants looking to get in under the wire and avoid the new vetting.