Maura Healey: Feds need to speed up work authorizations

Gov. Maura Healey insists the feds speed up migrant work authorization approvals, as she says employment will get them out of shelters sooner.

In a Thursday letter to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Healey asked for a handful of regulatory changes that she said would help migrants quickly and immediately apply for work authorizations. The governor also urged the Biden administration to digitize immigration processes.

“Thousands of families are living in emergency shelter in our state, with a significant rate of increase in the past several months,” Healey wrote in the letter. “Many of these new arrivals are drawn to Massachusetts for a safe haven, but arrive with neither the means nor personal connections to secure shelter and access to fundamental human necessities.”

Healey said there is “historic demand” in Massachusetts for workers across all industries amid low unemployment. Tens of thousands of job openings could be filled by new arrivals, she said.

“Every work authorization issued represents an opportunity to meet employer needs, support our economy, and reduce dependency among new arrivals,” Healey wrote.

Healey declared a state of emergency in Massachusetts last month, a move that was paired with a call to the federal government for expedited work authorizations and additional funding to deal with an overburdened shelter system.

In the weeks since, the emergency shelter crisis has shown no sign of letting up, with the Healey administration projecting as many as 1,000 families could enter the system each month.

The governor met with Mayorkas weeks after the emergency declaration during a private huddle at the State House, during which, she has said, she had a “productive conversation” to “support Massachusetts’ needs to address the rapidly rising number of migrant families arriving in Massachusetts.”

Healey said the letter was a “direct follow-up from our most recent discussion.”

Two direct regulatory changes would immediately support more new arrivals working, Healey wrote.

Those are allowing migrants to work once they’re granted immigration status by the feds and that they can use their application as a provisional employment authorization document.

“These fundamental changes in rules,” she wrote, “… could be pivotal for those arrivals’ chances of beginning to earn income.”

She also suggested logistical and technical improvements for arrival and employment authorization processing including increased digital communication between U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and improving access to online forms with direct language translations.

“Massachusetts has stepped up to address what sadly has been a federal crisis of inaction that is many years in the making,” Healey wrote. “We appreciate your direct engagement, but even with the exhaustive efforts of your team within the bounds of what is allowable by law, we will still be in desperate need of expanded federal partnership, federal funding, and urgent federal action.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/o31UB5m