Resource: AsylumWorks v. Wolf

The Trump administration promulgated new rules that drastically curtail access to work authorization for people who flee to the United States and apply for asylum protection. Employment authorization documents (EADs) are integral to asylum seekers’ ability to sustain themselves and their families pending the adjudication of their cases, which can take years as a result of current backlogs in the immigration courts. In many states, work permits are the only identification documentation asylum seekers can receive until they are granted protection.

These new rules removed the prior 30-day deadline for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to adjudicate initial EAD applications and erected significant new barriers to obtaining employment authorization, including new outright bars on eligibility.

Advocates previously challenged these rules in the District Court of Maryland in Casa de Maryland v. Wolf, Case No. 8:20-cv-02118 (D.D.C.), obtaining a preliminary injunction which prevented USCIS from applying a subset of the new EAD rules’ provisions to members of Casa de Maryland, Inc. (CASA) and Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP). The challenge we have filed builds upon that case and seeks to prevent the application of any part of the new EAD rules to any asylum seeker.