Migrants Find Loophole for Work Permits

A formidable group of locals in the Denver area who have helped welcome migrants to the region are encouraging noncitizens to start their own businesses as they await legal work status.

Denver has long drawn national attention as a sanctuary city that has welcomed more migrants per capita than any other. As of Monday, the city has tended to 41,367 newcomers from the U.S.-Mexico border at an approximate $69 million price tag.

A limited amount of federal funding, inaction on border security in Congress, and a rising price tag affiliated with shelter costs and migrant resources has pushed those like Democratic Denver Mayor Mike Johnston to implement an asylum-seeker program aimed to enact long-term changes that keep other city services viable.

The Asylum Seekers Program announced by Johnston earlier this month was described as "the first step" in a long-term migrant response. Roughly 1,000 asylum seekers are being welcomed into the city's newcomer shelter system, though they must wait at least 180 days after applying for asylum to receive legal work authorization. They are also being provided six months of housing assistance, in-depth workforce training and food assistance while they wait for the authorization.

Due to the approximate six-month delay in work permits, regional groups like Highlands Moms & Neighbors are encouraging migrants to start their own businesses right now instead of waiting on Temporary Protected Status (TPS)—which many migrants, such as those from Venezuela, may not even qualify for in the first place.

"One workaround that we have found as a mom community, Moms and Neighbors, is creating LLCs [limited liability companies]," Andrea Ryall, who heads Highlands Moms & Neighbors, told local station 9News. "Many of these individuals are highly skilled. They come with a whole slew of work experience and different ways that they can earn income."

Newsweek reached out to Johnston's office via email for comment.

Ryall told Newsweek on Tuesday that her comments about LLCs stem from the federal government's chaos in dealing with immigration.

Processes like TPS or entering with a particular schedule set by using the CBP One app can be lengthy when she says that all migrants she's been in contact with in the Denver area dating back to November "just want to work."

"[LLCs are] absolutely a 100 percent legal pathway to generating income for yourself, whether you're a local or a newcomer," she said. "When I say workaround, I'm talking about the actual insanity that is the illegal immigration system."

Ryall knows "hundreds and hundreds" of migrants who don't want handouts but "want to work" and, in turn, care for their families. As she puts it, opening the door to thousands of migrants without an immediate right to work or pathway is a broad problem.

"It is, per the U.N., a human right to be able to work and feed yourself," she said. "It would be the same thing I want for myself and my kids anywhere on the planet."

Non-U.S. citizens, under the law, are allowed to start their own businesses without being required to possess green cards or acquire legal citizenship, akin to the same methodologies employed by foreign-born business owners who do not have to be located within the United States to start a company there.

V. Reeves, a migrant advocate in Denver who works with Housekeys Action Network Denver [H.A.N.D.], told Newsweek via email that Johnston's asylum program was presented as "flowery and superfluous" yet will not accommodate the sheer numbers of migrants who have sought refuge in the city.

"Those who are not selected for this program will be offered a meager 1-3 days of congregate shelter, after which they will be offered a bus ticket out of town or be subject to intense criminalization and harassment for attempting to stay that can result in them being arrested or deported," Reeves said.

Some of her criticism includes the number of migrants allotted within the program, to which she says there are more than 1,000 now and soon to be more as the city intends to downsize shelters—in her view leading to a situation where migrants "will find themselves on the streets if they refuse to succumb to an endless chase of supposed, fabled opportunity elsewhere."

Reeves has also accused the mayor and his team of not consulting with local migrant resources and advocacy groups "at any point" during the asylum program rollout.

"They were kept in the dark and told [at the] last minute about the changes to policy without any means of navigating this new process," she said. "This stunts the huge amount of progress that the local community has made thus far in learning the current migrant system and providing support where needed."

Highlands Moms & Neighbors has more than 8,100 members in its private Facebook group, in addition to other affiliated regional Facebook pages designed to help connect migrants to shelters, advocacy organizations, health care and food pantries.

As of February, group members have put in more than 36,000 volunteer hours and served more than 61,000 meals at shelters and encampments throughout the metro area, according to 9News.

Ryall said that she and others in her group have encouraged migrants to pursue their own business opportunities due to innovation and job opportunities in the Denver area.

However, she admitted that the process, intended to circumvent work authorization and get migrants on their financial footing more swiftly, is not without its hitches.

"The problem on the back end of what I am finding for them are challenges with banking, with them being able to open a business bank to actually manage the funds of their business," she told the local news station.

But Ryall and her colleagues will continue to seek and discover workarounds when it comes to work permits because, as she put it, it will make the community better in the long run.

"I do think in this moment, when we are in a humanitarian crisis, it would be wise to take a look at the policies in place to allow more of this population to work and care for themselves and also pay right back into the American economy," she said.

Update 04/30/24, 2:40 p.m. ET: This story was updated with comment from Andrea Ryall.