In 2016, a woman I’ll call Belle left her job as a dietitian in a Venezuelan hospital and applied for humanitarian protections as a political asylum-seeker in the U.S.
Now, after following the long process to receive a work permit, she is employed as dietetic technician at a Chicago hospital. She’s filling a critical role in Midwest health care, a sector plagued with worker shortages. Her employer is delighted with her work: In the spring, she received a promotion, her second since starting in her department.
Asylum protections and work authorization are critical lifelines for people like Belle (not her real name). Her story, one of more than 1,000 stories of political asylum-seekers served by my organization, Upwardly Global, also illustrates how these people are poised to make important contributions to our region’s workforce and economy if given the opportunity.
However, if recent policy proposals from the Department of Homeland Security come to fruition, the future is bleak for asylum-seekers — and for local employers who would benefit from their talents.
Under current law, asylum-seekers can apply for a work permit 150 days after filing for asylum protections. The time is necessary to process applicants’ cases, but these months are often long and lean for people like Belle. Many drain their savings to flee their countries, leaving them with little to survive on while they await work authorization.
Belle struggled to afford food and rent when she arrived. Others are even less fortunate: Human Rights First documents how many asylum-seekers experience homelessness, hunger and limited access to health care while awaiting employment authorization.
The wait to work is already arduous, putting vulnerable people in precarious situations. Yet recent months have seen proposals that could put work authorization further out of reach for asylum-seekers.
In September, the government proposed a new rule that could further delay work permit processing times. In November it issued proposals to increase fees for employment authorization applications and to more than double the wait for asylum-seekers to apply for a work permit, extending it from five months to 12. The public can comment until Monday on these proposed fee hikes and until Jan. 13 on the 365-day wait to work.
Denying asylum-seekers the ability to work carries costs for Chicago’s workforce and economy as well. The city was recently recognized as the most immigrant-friendly in the nation, and for good reason: Chicago increasingly depends on its foreign-born population for demographic and economic vitality, according to research from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
My organization has a unique perspective on the missed opportunity that is denying asylum-seekers the ability to work. The people we serve come to the United States with college degrees and valuable experience in high-demand fields like health care, information technology, engineering and finance. They have global savvy and multilingual abilities, which are assets in an increasingly international marketplace. They offer diverse perspectives to teams, proven to bolster workforce innovation and problem-solving. They are loyal employees, with lower turnover rates than their U.S.-born peers.
The asylum-seekers who have completed our job coaching programs earn more than $18 million annually at an average salary of more than $59,000 each. They contribute an estimated $2.1 million in federal taxes, while filling both local tax coffers and critical skills gaps in cities like Chicago.
DHS maintains that new rules are being proposed to cut personnel costs and boost agency revenue, which would ostensibly ensure more efficient processing of future asylum applications. Yet the math behind these claims warrants deeper analysis. And when considered in light of the proposals’ significant economic and humanitarian costs, the numbers don’t add up at all.
Offering safe harbor and encouraging self-sufficiency are both fundamentally American values. Denying both is un-American and inhumane — and economically untenable in a city like Chicago.
Sara McElmurry is director of communications, policy and research at Upwardly Global, a nonprofit that supports the professional integration of work-authorized immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers. She is also a nonresident fellow with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
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