Washington, D.C. (August 19, 2022) - As a measure to provide greater support to the thousands of Ukrainians and Afghans who have been paroled into the United States, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that certain aliens granted humanitarian parole may now file their
employment authorization application (Form I-765) online, rather than using the paper-based process generally required of most employment authorization applicants. The administration, however, has been silent on disclosing that the new process may also be available to all border crossers who have been granted humanitarian parole as an alternative to mandatory detention pending their removal proceedings.
All aliens in the United States are required to obtain employment authorization
before they can lawfully work in the country. Certain classes of aliens, such as nonimmigrant F-1 visa holders (students) seeking practical training or asylum applicants, are required to apply for employment authorization with USCIS to obtain authorization. Aliens who file an asylum application at the border, however, are
required by law to wait 180 days before becoming eligible to apply for an employment authorization document (EAD).
Elizabeth Jacobs, the Center’s Director of Regulatory Affairs and Policy, said, “USCIS’s new online platform may permit thousands of inadmissible aliens who have been paroled into the United States to receive their work permits ahead of applicants for many work-eligible visa categories.”
The statutory waiting period, combined with
“last in, first out” processing, is designed to deter aliens from making fraudulent or frivolous asylum claims for the sole purpose of receiving an EAD. A grant of humanitarian parole, however, allows these aliens to circumvent the statutory waiting period as such individuals with parole become
eligible for an EAD under a separate mechanism in law. The new USCIS online platform comes as the agency is facing
historic backlogs for nearly all of its application portfolios and may allow many to jump the processing queue even further while creating longer wait times for aliens who entered the United States lawfully.
