I beg to differ on their definition of legally crossed. Showing up here claiming economic asylum is not a legal entry.
via Yahoo:
“EL PASO, Texas – The Hernández family from Cuba huddled together, bundled in winter coats, for a pre-dawn appointment to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
A perk awaited them on the U.S. side of the international bridge, if they were accepted: a fast-track to legal work authorization.
As Senate Republicans push for hardline border measures in negotiations with the White House, the Biden administration is quietly working to improve its signature “legal pathway” to solve a problem that has confounded Democrat-led cities receiving tens of thousands of migrants: getting fast work permits for those who cross lawfully.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recently set up a pre-registration program – pioneered in Brownsville, Texas, and replicated in El Paso and San Ysidro, California – to more quickly process work permits for migrants who present at the border using the CBP One app appointment system, operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
“It’s a game changer,” said Kari Lenander, executive director of Border Servant Corps, the nonprofit hosting USCIS in its El Paso migrant logistics center.
“We’ve seen grown men cry when they realize they can’t work legally,” Lenander said. Now, “everyone who leaves CBP One is eligible for the initial registration. It seems like an incentive for people to come through CBP One,” rather than cross illegally between ports of entry.
Accelerating work permits ‘a great idea’
Two women working for a USCIS contractor entered migrants’ biographical information into a computer and snapped halo-lit, digital photos on a Thursday in mid-December at the storefront located steps from the Paso Del Norte international bridge. The pre-registration is designed to speed along migrants’ applications for employment authorization.
The Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of USCIS, announced in September it would accelerate processing of work permits for migrants paroled into the country after their CBP One appointment.
Democrat-led cities including New York and Chicago were clamoring for help supporting the tens of thousands of migrants arriving, often bused in from the Texas border by Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star. New York Mayor Eric Adams urged the federal government to facilitate access to work permits as his city struggled to aid more than 126,000 asylum seekers and other migrants who had few resources, needed shelter and had no authorization to find work.”
h/t Dino