Mayor Eric Adams, along with 39 other mayors and county executives from across the country, renewed his call for President Biden to grant work authorization to both newly arrived and long-standing undocumented migrants in a Thursday letter to the White House.
The missive, co-authored by big city executives such as Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago and Mayor Michelle Wu of Boston, urges the Biden administration to allow millions of undocumented migrants to work. The letter comes as new arrivals continue to flow into the country and overwhelm many jurisdictions.
Specifically, the group is asking the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to grant undocumented migrants the status known as “parole,” which immediately allows them to apply for work authorization. They are calling for the “parole” status to apply to both newly arrived immigrants and those who have been in the country for years.
Adams has been asking the federal government to provide work authorization for undocumented immigrants for some time, with his calls going unanswered. Meanwhile, approximately 200,000 migrants have arrived in the five boroughs over the past two years who lack work authorization.
Adams has long seen issuing more migrant work permits as the best way to alleviate the strain that caring for tens of thousands of newcomers has placed on the city’s finances and resources. He, along with the letter’s other signatories, pointed to the potential for migrants to contribute to the US economy and the need to protect them from exploitation as key reasons to allow more of them to work legally.
“We know that the only way to make the American Dream work is if we let people work because work is the foundation of that dream,” Adams said in a statement. “In the absence of any long-overdue comprehensive reform by Congress, expanded work authorization for immigrants is a win-win-win: it allows immigrants to do what they came to this country to do and provide for their families. It prevents exploitation of workers, and it relieves some of the financial and logistical burden that shelter systems across the country have been under.”
The letter also cites support from 80 members of Congress, the American Business Immigration Coalition’s over 300 employers and labor groups like the United Auto Workers (UAW).
The executives who signed the letter also suggested ways for the Biden administration to allow long-term undocumented immigrants to work specifically.
Their ideas include granting parole to the undocumented spouses and parents of US military service members — which they said includes 1.2 million individuals. They also suggest a work permit for migrants who have been in the country for over 10 years and establishing a parole program specifically for children of migrants too young for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
“Despite their lack of work authorization, long-term immigrants are valued members of communities across this country,” the letter reads. “It is time we provided the security and opportunity they have long yearned for. It is time to extend work permits to bring millions out of the shadows. On behalf of our new residents and long-term immigrants, we urge you to use this authority to everyone’s shared benefit.”
The mayor’s office has taken its own action to try and get more migrants in the city work permits. Chief among them was establishing the administration’s Asylum Application Help Center nearly a year ago.
The center has helped migrants submit 50,000 applications for work authorization, asylum and Temporary Protected Status, according to City Hall. Filing for asylum and being given TPS are also both paths allowing migrants to apply for working papers.
