Alma Perez Pivaral knew the government had 90 days to renew her work permit. As the deadline came and went this past summer, she feared she might lose her west metro restaurant job.
Twin Cities immigrant advocates and attorneys say Pivaral's experience is becoming more common among applicants for the yearlong permits. They are a diverse group, from asylum seekers to spouses of green card applicants to international students to foreigners in the midst of often lengthy deportation proceedings.
Minnesota Sen. Al Franken recently questioned immigration officials about a growing drumbeat of complaints about the processing delays from both immigrants and the businesses that employ them. A Minneapolis nonprofit that serves asylum applicants joined a federal lawsuit over the waits.
"We were interested in trying to get the government to follow its own rules," said Michele McKenzie, deputy director of the Advocates for Human Rights. "We need to make sure our clients can eat and survive."
Meanwhile, some opponents of the Obama administration's immigration policy say too many work permits are being given out, with little mind to protecting American workers.
The government approved more than 2 million employment authorization document requests in the 2015 fiscal year, a 70 percent increase over the previous year. As of this summer, more than 554,000 work permit applications were pending.
Missing deadlines
Under the law, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has 30 days to handle first-time work permit applications from asylum seekers and 90 days for all other applications. The agency has faced perennial criticism about exceeding these limits.
But over the past year, says Michelle Rivero, this year's advocacy head for the local American Immigration Lawyers Association chapter, the delays have worsened markedly. Rivero says attorneys commonly see 90-day waits for asylum applicants and waits of 120 days or longer for others. Meanwhile, the government has largely stopped issuing interim work permits as required when it fails to meet its deadlines, advocates say.