The economic dividend of immigration faces legal and logistical hurdles

The U.S. economic recovery from the pandemic has been stronger and more durable than many experts expected, and a rebound in immigration is a major reason.

A resumption of visa processing in 2021 and 2022 has boosted employment, allowing foreign-born workers fill some gaps in the workforce that persisted across all industries and locations after the pandemic shutdown. Immigrants also meet a longer-term need: replenishing the labor force, a key to meeting labor demand as birth rates decline and older people retire.

Net migration in the year ending July 1, 2023, reached its highest level since 2017. The foreign-born now stands at 18.6 percent of the workforce, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that immigration will prevent the number of working Americans from declining over the next decade. Balancing job seekers and opportunities is also critical to moderating wage inflation keep prices under control.

International instability, economic crises, war and natural disasters have led to a new flow of refugees that could help close the crisis. still increased gap between the demand for labor and job candidates. But that potential economic dividend must contend with the inflammatory politics, logistical hurdles and administrative backlogs the wave has created.

Visits to Texas Thursday by President Biden and his likely election opponent, former President Donald J. Trump, highlight the political tensions. Mr. Biden is trying to deal with a border situation that he recently called “chaos,” and Mr. Trump has vowed to close the door after record numbers crossed the border under the Biden administration.

Since the start of fiscal year 2022, about 116,000 have done so arrived as refugees, a status that comes with a federally funded resettlement network and immediate eligibility for work. A few hundred thousand others who arrived from Ukraine and Afghanistan are entitled to similar benefits.

But there have been many more – about 5.5 million arrested at the border and at airports and seaports. Not everyone is allowed to stay, but a large majority of those who do receive little government support. People seeking asylum have faced long delays before they can legally work, and a busing campaign by southern governors has concentrated them in a few cities that are struggling to absorb them.

The need for workers is often greatest elsewhere. Steve Snyder, business agent for Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 157 in Lafayette, Indiana, and president of the city council, says his union is desperate for new members, especially given the new infrastructure work available in the region.

“I would welcome them with open arms, put them in a hotel and do my very best to get them involved in our community because that is what we need,” Mr. Snyder said. “It’s going to be expensive, it’s going to be uncomfortable, but it’s something that, in my opinion, needs to be done.”

Immigrants have previously revitalized shrinking towns and cities. Anuj Gupta runs the Welcoming Center, a Philadelphia nonprofit founded 20 years ago in an effort to stem population decline by attracting immigrants. “This should be as bipartisan an issue as an issue can be in 2024, because the economy demands it, employers want it, and the people coming are looking for work,” Mr. Gupta said.

The Biden administration acted to get migrants into the workforce by expanding Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans who were in the United States before July 31, 2023, a move that affected 472,000 people. It has also expanded its use humanitarian parole for people from countries in turmoil, including Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua; the designation typically lasts two years and requires applicants to have a financial sponsor in the United States.

People in those categories are immediately eligible for a work permit, but must still be processed. The asylum process offers the prospect of legal work, but requires a waiting period of at least six months after applying for asylum. In 2022 it is lasted an average of nine months to process one of those permits.

State and local governments in New York And Illinois was put into high gear at the end of last year to get the paperwork moving. Agencies began hosting massive document processing events to get people into the pipeline, hiring scholarships for those who made it through. Median processing times for work permits for asylum seekers and parolees is now less than a month.

As a result, the number of work permits granted to people seeking or having been granted asylum, refugees and those under temporary protected status and parole increased from approximately 423,000 in 2022 to over 1.2 million in 2023. data from US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

But filling out the paperwork is still a major bottleneck. The number of adults crossing the border continues to exceed the number of work permit applications submitted. They are difficult for non-English speakers to complete without legal assistance, which is in short supply, and often require fees and a consistent mailing address.

Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York have helped thousands of people with work permit paperwork. It also trains immigrants for specific tasks, such as nannies, and offers safety training needed for construction work.

One of the beneficiaries was Edgar Alayón.

Mr. Alayón, 32, was an accountant in Venezuela before losing his job for not supporting the Venezuelan government. He arrived in the United States in May and Texas offered free flights to New York, where, he had heard, the city would provide shelter.

Mr. Alayón was granted parole, but he did not work until receiving his work permit in December. That allowed him to take up jobs in construction and rent a small room in an apartment.

But he only gets a few days of work a week, and his work permit is only valid until May 2025. His goal is to get a green card, which would free him from the fear of possible deportation and give him time to return to his former profession.

“God willing, I have to work on it, I will get my residency,” Mr. Alayón said through a translator. “It would be an honor to be a citizen of this city and the United States, which offers us so many opportunities.”

But New York City isn’t the best place to look for work. The unemployment rate is 5.4 percent, significantly above the national average. Many positions typically occupied by immigrants, such as those in hotels and restaurants, never fully recovered from the pandemic. That has forced people to look for jobs like food delivery, with low barriers to entry but high competition.

And the push for work permits for the newest arrivals has stirred some resentment among the millions of undocumented immigrants who still don’t have access to legal work permits.

“You have to make sure you don’t pit them against each other,” said James Parrott, director of economic and fiscal policy at the New School’s Center for New York City Affairs. “I think over time it will be a positive thing and they will be integrated, but in the short term it is very disruptive and people shouldn’t be blasé about it.”

Dr. Parrott said it would help if state governments facilitated the move to smaller cities, where more housing is available than in the big cities where buses from Texas have been unloading. Some migrants have found their way to other places, often with the help of a free bus ticket, but it is not always clear what resources and opportunities await them.

Even for those who have found permanent employment, work permits are a temporary solution, while asylum courts remain inundated with applications that now take years to assess, exposing applicants to continued uncertainty.

Yusuf Ali Sendil’s experience offers a glimpse into what the future could look like for millions of newcomers with limited permission to remain in the United States.

Dr. Sendil, a psychiatric researcher from Turkey, said he lost his job in 2017 for political reasons. He received a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University on a research visa and later applied for asylum. Long lead times for an initial work permit forced him to postpone his start as a medical assistant at Rutgers.

Because the permit only lasts for two years, he has already applied for an extension. But although the first work permits are now coming quickly and for some categories over the last five yearsextensions often last sixteen months, according to federal data.

That means Dr. Sendil could face another period without a work permit, which is potentially disruptive for his patients and could derail his career.

“If I don’t get it on time, I’ll lose my job, and if I don’t finish my residency, I won’t be able to apply,” says Dr. Sendil, a member of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, which represents hundreds of organizations. thousands of people in similar situations. “All my colleagues are planning a position after their residency, but I really can’t do that because I don’t know what will happen.”