Georgetown Law & UBN Life on Hold

Limit In-Person Interviews and Streamline LRIF Processing: USCIS should account for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and require in-person interviews for LRIF applicants in extreme cases only. Further, USCIS should dedicate one processing center for LRIF applications, including uniformly training designated USCIS staff to process LRIF applications and to respond to policy inquiries from stakeholders. Given the program’s one-year extension and impending deadline, significant resources should be dedicated to ensuring the program is executed seamlessly. Automatically Waive LRIF Application Fees: LRIF applicants are eligible for a fee waiver, but granting the waiver is discretionary. Without it, principal applicants must pay more than $1,000 per person in application fees, biometric appointment fees, and employment authorization fees. Given the economic constraints facing the country due to COVID-19, and given that many Liberians work in essential, frontline industries, LRIF fee waivers should be automatically granted. Automatically Grant Work Re-authorization: USCIS should automatically extend EAD work authorization for those in the LRIF program. Currently, an applicant is eligible to receive EAD work authorization for one year and is required to renew the EAD every year to continue working. 114 Many Liberians have worked in this country for years, and the onerous process of reapplication has only further burdened these individuals. Cutting out this cumbersome and repetitive application process will cut down on paperwork and processing time. Clarify Mandatory Relief: USCIS policy guidance does not emphasize that LRIF is a mandatory form of relief, meaning that if eligible applicants meet all requirements, they shall be granted relief. USCIS should both in practice and in its public materials make it especially clear that LRIF is a mandatory program, and that rank-and-file USCIS officers should not compromise that fact with misplaced discretionary denials. Recommendations for Improving LRIF: Legislative Action While much can be accomplished through executive action, there are restrictions on LRIF that Congress has put in place. The following recommendation is contingent on congressional action. Establish LRIF as a Permanent Adjustment of Status Program: LRIF has suffered from arbitrary deadlines since its passage in 2019. Congressional intent demonstrates that LRIF is meant to be a reparative program, providing relief for Liberians who have sought refuge in the United States for decades given the ongoing turmoil in their home country. Instead of imposing arbitrary one-year deadlines and extensions, LRIF should be made a permanent program with no end date on the application period. Because a finite number of Liberians living in the United States are, and will ever be, eligible for LRIF, applicants should be given an indefinite or very generous time frame to apply. Imposing these arbitrary deadlines begs the question as to why lawmakers would want to cause thousands of Liberians living in the U.S. to languish without legal status should they miss the deadline? Extending the availability of LRIF beyond one-year periods during a global pandemic will accomplish the humanitarian and reparative goal of the statute: providing Liberians in the U.S. with permanent protection from deportation. Currently, applications must be received on or by December 20, 2021. That deadline should be extended indefinitely by Congress so that all who qualify, may apply.

114 Employment Authorization Document, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Servs., https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card- processes-and-procedures/employment-authorization-document (last visited May 4, 2021).

Life On Hold: Black Immigrants & the Promise of Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness

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