Trump’s Immigrant Vetting Squeezes Employers, Pushes Out Workers

Tens of thousands of immigrant workers in the US could be forced out of their jobs early in 2026 as President Donald Trump’s new employment restrictions hit the labor force.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services late last year mandated that immigrants renew work permits more frequently, and discontinued long-established grace periods allowing them to continue working when their applications are stuck in mounting administrative backlogs.

The full impact of the new policies will play out over the coming year and create even more long-term uncertainty for employers. Previous policies allowing longer validity periods for work permits and automatic extensions for pending renewals “provided a lot more certainty to employees that was really helpful,” said Tim D’Arduini, a partner at Klasko Immigration Law Partners LLP.

The loss of immigrant workers over employment document issues will push businesses to rethink labor pipelines, D’Arduini said, including more investments in automation or increased wages to compete for talent.

Hotels, restaurants, and manufacturers already struggling to keep jobs filled will face even bigger hiring challenges, said Misty Chally, executive director of the Critical Labor Coalition, a coalition of employer groups formed to address labor shortages.

“We’re very concerned about the fact that the backlogs will continue, if not get worse,” she said. “We’re going to lose good workers that have been here for years.”

A Biden Department of Homeland Security rule renewing automatic work permit extensions last year averted employment disruptions for 800,000 foreign workers, the agency projected. The Trump administration has made no similar attempt to project the impact of ending the automatic renewals.

Businesses that rely on those workers to address ongoing labor needs across a range of industries are facing compounding challenges for continued employment eligibility thanks to shorter duration of work permits and discontinued automatic renewals.

The new employment restrictions come amid escalating USCIS scrutiny of all immigrant benefit requests—including those already screened multiple times by immigration officers. The changes are part of a broader effort to strip protections and work permits from more than a million people admitted to the country through humanitarian pathways like Temporary Protected Status, putting further pressure on employers.

Rule Changes

USCIS on Oct. 30 issued an interim final rule ending automatic extensions of work permits for immigrants who filed to renew before their documents expired, ending a policy that had been in effect in some form for nearly a decade. Biden administration regulations extended work permits for 540 days for applicants with pending renewals.

USCIS in December also shortened work permits to 18 months for foreign workers who previously got up to five years of employment authorization.

The combination of policy changes affects refugees and asylum seekers as well as spouses of workers on H-1B visas and green card applicants waiting to adjust their status to permanent residency. The Trump administration said the new employment restrictions will allow for increased scrutiny of foreign nationals.

USCIS Director Joseph Edlow linked the reduced validity of work permits to an attack on National Guard members in Washington, DC, which he said made it “even more clear that USCIS must conduct frequent vetting of aliens.”

The end of automatic extensions for backlogged work permit renewals is seen as even more impactful. It will mean workers who have been in the US for years who have already been screened multiple times by immigration officials will likely be forced out of jobs, employer groups and immigrant advocates say.

More than 165,000 work permit renewals were pending at USCIS for longer than six months, according to the most recent data from the agency. Last year, the DHS estimated that automatically extending work permits saved employers $3.5 billion.

The Trump administration’s move to do away with the extensions will destabilize the workforce, add turnover cost for employers, and reduce tax revenues, the National Employment Law Project said.

The National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors warned coming work permit lapses will slow down the operations of warehouses and distribution centers. And wholesaler-distributors will now have to meticulously track expiration details of work permits, the group said in comments on the Oct. 30 rule.

Employer Pressures

Health-care workers, therapists who serve children with special needs, and truck drivers keeping store shelves stocked are among the asylum applicants affected, said Conchita Cruz, co-executive director at the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project.

“This rule is obviously bad for immigrant workers, but it is also bad for employers that rely on these workers, and for communities that rely on them,” Cruz said.

USCIS set rules on the duration and automatic extension of work permits in the past based in part on resource constraints, in addition to the interests of workers and their employers, said Jonathan Micale, a principal at consulting firm Integra Strategic Advisors and former operational executive at USCIS.

But the Trump administration appears less concerned with the timely adjudication of those cases, he said.

“I can’t think of a time in my 21 years at USICS where we had enough resources to adjudicate all cases in the time that ideally we would have liked to,” Micale said. “You just understood that was part of the business.”

Chally of the Critical Labor Coalition said the jobs affected by the policy changes aren’t likely to be filled by US-born workers.

“Many of these jobs have been unfilled for a while,” Chally said. “There’s nobody taking these jobs.”