Two years into his presidency, President Joe Biden is finally starting to
prioritize
immigration policy. Over the past month, his administration has announced
new proposals
to make it easier for refugees and asylum-seekers to migrate legally to the United States.
That sounds like great news for our historically slow and rigid immigration system. But because of restrictions on how quickly immigrants can get to work and the way the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is funded, the new proposals will end up hurting American businesses, as well as the very immigrants the Biden administration wants to help.
BIDEN REBOOTS BORDER IMMIGRATION STRATEGY
The Department of Homeland Security is now allowing asylum-seekers to enter the country via
legal points of entry
at the Mexican border. If they can demonstrate a “vulnerability” and pass a background check, Homeland Security will grant them a humanitarian visa and allow them to live permanently in the U.S.
Humanitarian visas are free for those applying for them, but processing large numbers of new immigrants isn’t easy or cheap, so the government needs to collect the money from somebody. Unlike other government agencies that chiefly rely on tax revenue to fund their operations, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services charges money directly to those who want to use their services. Possible immigrants (or their would-be employers) have to pay certain fees to get permission to move to and work within the U.S.
Because of this fee-for-service model, it makes sense for Citizenship and Immigration Services to offset rising costs due to an increase in humanitarian visas by increasing fees for other immigrants. Essentially, this means that foreign workers will be forced to subsidize the costs of processing poorer, nonworking immigrants.
And it has already begun. Earlier this month, Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that it wants to
increase its fees
and charge
thousands of dollars
, depending on the type of application. Because people must submit several different applications, it can wind up costing one worker
$4,000 to $12,000
to complete the entire process. Some applications are already outrageously expensive. For example, a type of investor visa called the
I-956
costs the applicant $17,795; Citizenship and Immigration Services wants to bump this up to an astounding $47,695.
This would all make a lot more sense if those granted asylum were able to get straight to work and help pay for their own processing, but they can’t. To get permission to work, they must submit a separate application to Homeland Security, a process that the agency tries to complete within six months but which, in reality, often takes much longer. According to Citizenship and Immigration Services’
website
, 80% of work authorizations are approved within 16 months.
Thus the cost of today’s humanitarian visas will be exacted almost entirely on foreign workers or their would-be U.S. employers. With a
labor shortage
still affecting the country, the government’s increased fees will make it even harder for companies to fill job openings.
It didn’t have to be this way. Biden could have capitalized on his two-year majorities in Congress to push through reforms, such as eliminating the fee-for-service model, hiring more Citizenship and Immigration Services employees, and making it easier for asylum-seekers to get work authorizations. Instead, his administration ignored the problems with the immigration system, harming the economic prospects of hundreds of thousands of people.
Even now, the government is focused only on allowing immigrants entry, but caring little about making sure they have the same economic opportunities as everyone else once they arrive. It’s great that Biden is finally prioritizing the border crisis, but for the sake of Americans and immigrants alike, he should pay closer attention to the details.
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Tyler Curtis (
@tylercurtis42
) is a contributor at Young Voices. He received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Missouri S&T and currently works as a loan officer at a Missouri bank.
