Federal officials expand efforts to expedite migrant work permits in NYC with new intake center

Federal officials have expanded an on-the-ground operation to cut through red tape for migrants in New York City shelters who are applying for work permits.

A new intake center staffed by city, state and federal employees quietly opened Tuesday at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice on Manhattan’s West Side, reflecting a rare unified response to the migrant crisis by all three levels of government.

During a tour Gothamist attended Friday, staffers including U.S. Department of Homeland Security employees helped migrants throughout multiple rooms complete an hours-long application process for federal work authorization. Up until recently, work authorization applications had to be mailed to the U.S. government.

“This is definitely something that will cut down on the processing time for the application and welcome news,” said Deborah Lee, an attorney in charge of the nonprofit Legal Aid Society’s immigration law unit.

The new facility features 10 federal immigration staffers who review applications and requests for fee waivers, removing what could amount to $500 in costs per applicant. Immigration officials are also on hand to take photos using special biometric technology and collect fingerprints for those ages 12 and up — crucial information for obtaining a federal ID.

Officials said the model for the new intake center arose from two previous short-term legal assistance clinics with federal staffers that began in September and lasted roughly a month. The clinics helped more than 3,000 migrants apply for work permits, according to officials.

Now, the plan is to focus on Venezuelan migrants granted temporary protected status — a special immigration designation — by President Biden in September. TPS will allow the thousands of beneficiaries to live and work in the country legally for 18 months.

The federal government’s latest effort comes on the heels of a public campaign by New York City Mayor Eric Adams to demand more assistance from Biden and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Adams has argued the city has been unfairly tasked with addressing a humanitarian crisis costing billions of dollars locally, and has announced a series of painful cuts to city services, barring more funding and federal intervention.

At the same time, the mayor has faced criticism from both federal and state officials over his management of the crisis and getting migrants the legal services they need in a timely manner. City officials this week said they would ramp up their asylum and work permit assistance centers, which have helped file more 7,200 asylum claims so far — still a small fraction of the more than 140,000 migrants that have arrived since the spring of 2022.

All the parties agree that work permits are key to helping migrants become financially self-sufficient, which would enable them to exit a crowded city shelter system struggling to accommodate a few thousand additional new arrivals each week.

But Ann Cheng, a deputy chief policy officer in Adams’ office, said most migrants in the city’s care were not eligible for work permits. She noted the Biden administration could change that by extending TPS to other groups besides Venezuelans who arrived in the U.S. by a certain date.

Cheng said city officials are hoping for “anything that can cut down on the number of people [who] have to wait more than six months before they're able to work” under the current rules.

At the intake center, state officials pointed to a table where New York Labor Department staff were collecting contact information from migrants to enroll them in a program that matches them with job opportunities across the state.

Deputy Director of State Operations Gregory Anderson said the state had so far identified more than 10,000 job openings.

The new services are only being offered to migrants who are currently living in shelters and have been screened for work permit eligibility by city officials.

Legal Aid attorneys say they hope officials will eventually open the intake center to a larger pool of migrants, including those working with the organization and those not currently living in city shelters but who are at risk of becoming homeless.

Details on the John Jay intake center have not been widely publicized, even among legal advocates working with migrants. Lee of the Legal Aid Society said she first became aware of the new operation earlier this week.

“It’s something we have been asking for,” she said. “I did not know that it was in existence.”