Georgia has to wait for real immigration solutions

Many asylum seekers have been returned to Mexico by the US government under the pretext that Title 42 was used to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Editor’s Note: This article was contributed by Attorney Charles Kuck as part of Check out Baxter Immigration‘s annual advertising partnership with Global Atlanta.

Karl Schau

The “hot” news of the day is how the end of Title 42, a nonimmigration law, will somehow lead to a rush of asylum seekers into the state US southern border. The truth is that repealing Title 42 will do more Good as harm to the American Economy – and for Georgia Companies that want to fill vacancies.

What is Title 42?

Title 42 has been around for decades and has been used by every President to temporarily stop entry into the United States of persons who may be carrying potentially dangerous infectious diseases. The law was armed by the trump card government to supposedly prevent the spread of COVID (which was already spreading rapidly in the US at the time).

the bide The US government has approved its use to stem the flow of migrants seeking asylum into the US

That specific use of Title 42 for asylum was removed in a Nov. 15 ruling, but repeal of the law was delayed until Supreme Court Rules on whether states have the right to sue legitimate state immigration policies and regulations — a decision that may not come until March 2023.

The postponement came after a coalition of 19 states petitioned to keep Title 42, claiming its end would bring an influx of immigrants that would put a financial strain on those states.

The reality is actually the opposite. Allowing asylum seekers to enter the US would help fill vacancies and curb inflation.

Endless impact of Title 42: job vacancies and high inflation

The retention of Title 42 means further delays in allowing individuals to enter the United States and legally seek asylum under our laws. Regardless of whether immigrants come here legally or not, they have the right to seek asylum under the US statute book. Most people who have sought immigration in the past three years have done so because of the escalating violence in their home countries, mainly in Central and South America.

Any asylum seeker who is in the United States once is eligible for a work permit five months after filing his or her application for asylum. This will need time US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) 3-10 months to issue a work permit authorizing them to work anywhere in the United States.

Title 42’s deferral of asylum applications creates an even larger backlog of people awaiting processing and longer waiting times for job-seeking companies in Georgia.

Even with low unemployment Georgia employers still need workers. The state’s unemployment rate was 3 percent in November, which was below the national rate of 3.7 percent, and the number of jobs in Georgia increased 3.9 percent over the year.

Quiet, demand far exceeds supply of the labor force, with 1.7 job openings for every unemployed person in the US Economists have made it clear that the reduced number of legal immigrants entering the country over the past three years is not enough to provide the growing labor force needed to fill vacancies in our economy. Expanding track 42 doesn’t help.

The continued use of Title 42 also means a further delay for a possible solution to inflation.

Wages in Georgia and the US have been pushed up by competition for labour, which has contributed to high rates of inflation. Immigrants are – fortunately or unfortunately – natural brakes on inflation.

Immigrants typically earn lower wages than US citizens and are valuable to many industries in Georgia, especially the Service industry, as wages are one of the biggest costs for employers.

Effects of the end of Title 42: Processing Challenges

The ending of track 42 is a different matter altogether. Thousands of asylum seekers can apply for asylum at the US border and are entitled by law to an immigration hearing. Due to the sheer number of applicants, the question of the feasibility of processing arises.

Since May, when a federal judge in Louisiana initially clogged By preventing the Biden administration from completing Title 42, the policy has been used to justify hundreds of thousands of arrests and deportations. In October alone, there were more than 200,000 arrests along the US southern border, but only around 75,000 deportations US Customs and Border Protection Data.

However, title 42 was only used to indicate this Mexico about 30 percent of those who enter US ports of entry or are apprehended by border patrol agents.

Once title is 42 are lifted, thousands of potential migrant workers with long arrears will have to wait for their asylum claims to be heard in court and the system to process them.

Georgian companies looking to hire immigrants are bearing some of the brunt of these delayed legal procedures and approvals for issuing and processing work visas.

What happens next

When Title 42 is eventually repealed, public acceptance of immigrant labor will remain an uphill struggle. The perceived negative impact of thousands of asylum seekers entering the United States, no matter how wrong, has some states in turmoil.

The 19-state coalition that forced the emergency repeal of Title 42 repeal – Arizona, Alabama, Alaska, Kansas, KentuckyLouisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming – does not provide a welcoming environment for migrant workers.

Georgia is not on this list. We hope this is because our state recognizes the potential value of hiring some of these migrants to fill jobs — and potentially help curb inflation in the process.

Of course, we still need real immigration reform at the national level to bring migrant workers here legally. Any such reform would have to happen a GOP-controlled House of Representatives and would require 10 Republican senators to vote in favor.

We still have a long way to go to pass meaningful immigration laws — and get the migrant workers we need here in Georgia.

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Learn more about Kuck Baxter Immigration’s reform efforts and our services to assist Georgia employers and immigrants with their legal needs. Contact us at https://www.immigration.net/contact-us/.