Tensions simmer as newcomers & immigrants with deeper US roots strive for work permits
Homestead: In New York, migrants at a city-run shelter grumble that relatives who settled before them refuse to offer a bed.
In Chicago, a provider of mental health services to people in the country illegally pivoted to new arrivals sleeping at a police station across the street. In South Florida, some immigrants complain that people who came later get work permits that are out of reach for them. Across the country, mayors, governors and others have been forceful advocates for newly arrived migrants seeking shelter and work permits. Their efforts and existing laws have exposed tensions among immigrants who have been in the country for years, even decades, and don’t have the same benefits, notably work permits. And some new arrivals feel established immigrants have given them cold shoulders.
Thousands of immigrants marched this month in Washington to ask that President Joe Biden extend work authorisation to longtime residents as well. Signs read, “Work permits for all!” and “I have been waiting 34 years for a permit.” Despite a brief lull when new asylum restrictions took effect in May, arrests for illegal border crossings from Mexico topped 2 million for the second year in a row in the government’s budget year ending September 30.
Additionally, hundreds of thousands of migrants have been legally admitted to the country over the last year under new policies aimed at discouraging illegal crossings.
“The growing wave of arrivals make our immigration advocacy more challenging. Their arrival has created some tensions, some questioning,” said US Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, a Chicago Democrat whose largely Latino district includes a large immigrant population. People have been “waiting for decades for an opportunity to get a green card to legalize and have a pathway to citizenship.” Asylum-seekers must wait six months for work authorization. Processing takes no more than 1.5 months for 80 of applicants, according to US Citizenship and
Immigration Services.
