EXPEDITE WORK AUTHORIZATION FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS NOW

New York City is a melting pot of people from around the globe. Nowhere is that diversity better reflected than in our city’s world-renowned restaurants, which showcase the flavors, cuisines, and cultures of people from around the world.

We were thrilled to recently join influential restaurateurs including Danny Meyer, as well as New York City Mayor Adams, Gov. Kathy Hochul, Reps. Dan Goldman and Jerry Nadler. With that in mind, we were inspired to join New York’s labor, business and political leaders recently at a press conference in Brooklyn.

The goal was to come together to ask President Biden for special federal work authorization for the tens of thousands of migrants who’ve arrived in the state since last year and to send him a simple message: put asylumseekers to work.

I am proud to represent the restaurant industry, and every day, I hear from local business owners who are struggling to hire enough people to fill their job openings. Being short-staffed hurts, their businesses and the customer experience can suffer

The restaurant industry has always provided opportunities to immigrants, seeking better lives, including my great-grandparents who escaped persecution and arrived here in New York City. They worked hard, and my family eventually opened bakeries and cafes in Brooklyn and Queens. And all these generations later, immigrants continue to be the backbone of our hospitality industry. They are essential to the fabric of our communities. They are vital to our local and na- tional economy. This issue is personal for me, and to millions of others.

To address the staffing shortage, restaurateurs want to provide lawful work opportunities to the recently arrived migrants seeking asylum, so they can help fill these job openings and run their restaurants, stimulate our economy, support themselves and their families, and not have to rely on government. But to allow this, we need the federal government to act, now. We can wait no longer. While you debate, they want to work. We need to run our restaurants.

We have challenges on our hands, and by delaying work authorization for thousands of people already here in America, it only serves to exacerbate the challenges we face. But there is an easy solution to one of the challenges. I urge the federal government to expedite the work authorization process. It’s time to permit local businesses that want to hire asylum seekers to do so, and to allow the folks who want to work and help contribute to society to do so, all lawfully

A White House official responded to the New York Democrats by saying certain populations are already eligible for work authorization and pointed to the administration’s use of Temporary Protected Status. “We need Congress to act,” the official said in a statement. “Only they can reform and modernize our decades-old immigration laws.”

Once migrants arrive in the U.S., they have to wait 180 days after filing an application for required paperwork. The backlog fuels an underground economy that makes workers vulnerable to exploitation. Meanwhile, New York City is struggling to fill thousands of vacancies across municipal agencies.

Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul have urged an expansion of Temporary Protected Status, a program that allows certain immigrants to work legally in the U.S., to more countries. The state needs additional immigration judges, too, they said.

New York has stepped up and taken on enormous responsibility caring for the recently arrived migrants. It is now time for the federal government to step up and authorize our local businesses to hire the asylum seekers. We urge the Biden Administration and Congress to rise above the politics that divide us, and unite around policies that unite us, like honest work, delicious meals, great restaurants, and the American Dream. This is not only about doing what is morally right, but also what’s economically right, and, in the restaurant industry it is about what’s gastronomically right.