Work Permit Extension Ban Shuts Down Migrant Paychecks Overnight
Effective tomorrow, timely work permit filings offer no protection—one bureaucratic delay means lost jobs for thousands.
WASHINGTON — USCIS moved swiftly, quietly, and entirely in its own language. With a memo and a regulation published before dawn, the government declared an end to automatic extensions of work permits for immigrants who file to renew them. One day, a worker is on the clock; the next, the clock stops when their permit expires, no matter where their paperwork sits
What happened is a narrowing, a closing of breathing room. Until now, the rulebook carved out 180 days — then 540 days — for the government to do its job. You filed for renewal, and you got a receipt, and that slip of paper meant you could keep earning a living as your case churned through the bureaucratic gears. After tomorrow, that paper’s grace vanishes. Unless you fit a narrow exception, you stop working the day your card expires, and the consequences arrive in ordinary ways — income lost, rent unpaid, a child’s doctor visit postponed.
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This policy change is not some incremental fix. It happens in kitchens and construction sites, in the lives of the people who hold up the city, unseen. For all their talk of “national security,” the administration’s real message is simple and impersonal: if the process runs late, you lose your job. Deal with it. The new rule, effective immediately, insists on strict compliance, for workers and for the employers who must now reverify documents and let go of anyone caught out by a slow-moving file.