ILAP Applauds Leadership from Governor Mills, Representative Pingree, and Senator King in Securing Major Win for Maine’s Businesses and Immigrant Workers

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 11, 2024
CONTACT: press@ilapmaine.org

Maine - The Biden administration announced on December 10 it will be finalizing a rule automatically extending work permits for certain noncitizens. This rule addresses longstanding delays in work permit processing at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that result in immigrant workers not having their new work permits in hand before the old ones expire. This has led to Maine workers losing income or jobs altogether and businesses losing their valuable immigrant employees.     

Governor Mills, Representative Pingree, and Senator King all called on and successfully advocated for the Biden administration to make this urgently needed change to protect Maine’s businesses, workers, families, and economy.  

Lisa Parisio, ILAP’s Policy Director said: “This final rule is a major win for Maine’s businesses and immigrant workers and the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project applauds Governor Mills, Representative Pingree, and Senator King for pushing the Biden administration to take this decisive and much-needed action. Given huge processing delays at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), immigrant workers and their employers have been left in limbo when new work permits don’t arrive prior to the previous work permits expiring. This final rule solves this problem by automatically extending existing work permits for the time it will take to process renewal work permits, ensuring there are no gaps in work authorization which have previously cost Maine workers their jobs and have cost Maine businesses their workers.” 

In addition to this fix, ILAP continues to advocate for Congress to reduce the time period asylum seekers need to wait to be eligible for a work permit – a bipartisan effort spearheaded by Representative Pingree.  

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