As Oak Park grapples with housing roughly 160 migrants, mostly Venezuelans, who came to the village at the end of last October, and setting them up for a new start, questions abound. One of the most common: Why can’t they just go to work?
Migrants who arrive in the United States face many barriers to staying, including how to find a job and support themselves.
Fred Tsao, senior policy counsel for Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said most new arrivals in the United States have to wait to receive work permits, which can be a lengthy process.
“For better or worse eligibility to work is governed by federal law,” he said. “It’s not as though someone can just show up and work.”
The following is a list of some options available.
One pathway is Temporary Protected Status.
TPS is a form of humanitarian protection intended to shield some migrants from deportation.
TPS covers 16 countries, according to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, including Venezuela. The list is subject to change.
The TPS application includes questions about criminal history, Tsao said, which can affect an individual’s eligibility. Records such as a felony conviction can disqualify a migrant from receiving TPS. However, the approval rate is generous at roughly 94%, Tsao said.
If an individual applies for a work permit with their TPS application, the fee is $410. The processing time for a work permit, or an Employment Authorization Document, is typically 3 months, according to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, in contrast to the typical 6-month wait for TPS.
However, migrants from Venezuela who arrived in the United States after July 31, 2023, are not eligible to apply.
“The cutoff is basically meant to discourage people from coming in now,” Tsao said.
TPS is typically valid for only up to 18 months, including the processing time, Tsao said, but can be extended. If a migrant from Venezuela arrived before the deadline, they could still apply for TPS, but would not get the full 18-month benefit.
So for those who arrived in the village last October, it’s not an option.
Another option is applying for asylum.
TPS is meant to be temporary, Tsao said, and is not a path to citizenship. Migrants can, however, apply for asylum. However, denial rates for asylum are high, as only about one in four applications are approved, Tsao said.
“Asylum applications require and demand very significant amounts of documentation,” he said. “You have to prove the country conditions in your country of origin are really, really terrible and that this particular applicant has been subjected to persecution.”
Applicants would need to prove, for example, that the government or police were abusing them, were denying them employment opportunities, harassing them or even torturing them to be approved for asylum, Tsao said.
If approved, asylees would be eligible for employment, according to USCIS.
What about visas?
Temporary non-immigrant visas are typically for people looking to work in the United States for a fixed period of time, according to Boundless Immigration, which would most commonly require an application before coming to the United States. These types of visas also have commonly have education or profession requirements. For example, an H-1B visa has a residency cap of three years, requires a U.S. job offer for a specialty field, proof of a bachelor’s degree in that field and the employer providing evidence of a lack of qualified U.S. applicants for the role.
For employment-based visas, immigrants must have a specific combination of education, expertise or skills to qualify, according to Boundless Immigration. For example, an EB-1 visa applies only to those with “extraordinary ability,” such as scientists or business professionals.
Student or exchange visas can be acquired by academic or vocational students as well as those in cultural exchange programs, according to Boundless Immigration, but are not immigrant visas. These visas have requirements including types of eligible employment and language proficiency.
Migrants could also strive to achieve parole status.
Another option for migrants is applying for parole, which is approved on a case-by-case basis, Tsao said, and those approved are eligible for work permits.
“For many of these people, particularly those people who are in the shelters right now, they want to be able to work, they want to be able to support themselves,” he said.
Parole allows an individual who may be otherwise unable to enter the country to be paroled in, according to USCIS, without being formally admitted. Parole is typically not granted for more than one year.
Undocumented migrants face additional employment challenges.
Saul Arellano, a 25th police district council member, said he would like to see TPS expanded to include undocumented immigrants who are already in the United States.
“The majority of people who are undocumented are not able to get unionized,” he said. “Having a work permit would protect many people.”
Undocumented immigrants sometimes face losing their jobs when newer migrants with access to work permits apply, Arellano said, and can get exploited in other positions. Arellano said some of his family members who don’t have legal status or work permits in the United States have even been denied pay for their work.
“Many of them need help and support,” he said. “They are starting from scratch.”
Arellano said he wants to see undocumented individuals who have been working here and paying taxes included in the opportunity to receive work permits. He does not want anyone to be excluded.
“Right now, we can get them work permits that will help them,” he said. “Then slowly building to a movement to fight for immigration reform.”
