A new policy from the Trump administration is shaking up the lives of thousands of immigrants who could soon find themselves out of work while waiting for their work permit renewals.
Until now, immigrants could keep working as long as they filed to renew their permits before the expiration date. That automatic extension is gone. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is ending the policy and now requires people to wait until renewals are fully approved before they can legally work again. The change took effect Thursday.
The timing couldn’t be worse. The government is already facing massive backlogs that can delay processing for months. Immigrants whose work permits expire while they wait could lose their jobs, even if they did everything right.
WGBH reports that immigrants can apply for renewal up to six months before their permits expire, but it often takes longer than that to get approved. This means that even people who plan ahead could end up in limbo—unable to work, pay rent, or support their families.
Experts say the consequences could ripple far beyond individual workers. Employers who rely on immigrant labor may suddenly find themselves short-staffed or tempted to bend the rules. “The change will have devastating effects on businesses who will lose valuable employees and on workers who will lose their authorization to support themselves and their families,” said Lucas Guttentag, a Stanford law professor, in an interview with HuffPost.
The groups most affected include asylees, refugees, and spouses of certain visa holders. People whose extensions were approved before October 30 are in the clear, but anyone renewing after that date will feel the impact.
The Department of Homeland Security says the change is meant to ensure “the proper screening and vetting of aliens before extending the validity of their employment authorizations.” Critics aren’t buying that explanation. They point out that these same workers were already screened when they got their original permits. “These are workers that have the legal right to work in this country … they’ve been vetted, they’ve gone through the background checks,” said Victor Narro, Project Director for the UCLA Labor Center.
To many immigration experts, this looks less like a security measure and more like another step in the administration’s broader effort to make life harder for immigrants. “This is another tool in the process of the Trump administration’s effort to get people to self-deport,” Narro told HuffPost.
For thousands of people across the U.S., the fallout will be immediate and deeply personal. A simple bureaucratic delay could now mean losing a job, a paycheck, and the ability to stay afloat. Employers will be caught in the middle too, deciding whether to let go of trained, trusted workers or risk running afoul of the law.
While the government frames this as a matter of “vetting,” the human cost could be enormous—families forced to choose between survival and compliance, and businesses scrambling to fill roles left vacant by a policy shift they never saw coming.