Asylum Seekers Notch Wins, Work Permit Processing Times Ease (1)

Immigration officials have made steady progress in the time it takes to process asylum seekers’ work permits, following a failed bid to hold the government in contempt over worsening delays.

The share of work permit applications US Citizenship and Immigration Services processed within a court-mandated 30-day timeline plummeted to under 5% last year—a result, government lawyers said, of a spike in those applications. But by April 2023, that figure rebounded to 44.4% of work permits being processed within a month, according to a USCIS compliance report.

There were more than 708,000 pending asylum applications at the end of last ...