Comment Submitted by Whitney Wiseman

I strongly oppose the proposed rule, “Clarification of Discretionary Employment Authorization for Certain Aliens.” USCIS and DHS policies have already caused substantial harm to immigrant communities, mixed-status families, employers, and local economies. Further restricting employment authorization will not make communities safer or immigration administration more orderly. It will instead force individuals who are legally present under parole, deferred action, or an order of supervision out of lawful employment and into financial instability. People affected by this rule are workers, parents, tenants, taxpayers, caregivers, and members of established communities. When employment authorization is denied, shortened, or made unnecessarily difficult to renew, the harm does not fall only on the individual applicant. Children lose household income, employers lose trained employees, families risk eviction and food insecurity, and communities must absorb the resulting economic and social costs. Preventing people from working lawfully does not eliminate their need to survive. DHS itself acknowledges that this proposal could cause lost earnings, employer turnover costs, additional biometric and filing expenses, reduced tax revenue, and billions of dollars in direct economic costs. The agency estimates ten-year direct costs ranging from approximately $9.1 billion to $27.9 billion. These foreseeable harms weigh heavily against adoption of the rule. The proposal also raises serious concerns under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). Agency action may be set aside when it is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise contrary to law. DHS must meaningfully consider the real-world consequences of its decision, including reliance interests created by prior grants of employment authorization. Families, employees, and businesses have reasonably organized their lives around existing authorization periods and renewal procedures. Simply characterizing employment authorization as discretionary does not relieve the agency of its obligation to consider those reliance interests and provide a reasoned explanation for disrupting them. The proposed treatment of arrests, unresolved charges, sealed or expunged records, and diversion programs is particularly troubling. An arrest is not proof of guilt, and a charge without disposition is not a conviction. Treating these circumstances as presumptively disqualifying risks undermining fundamental principles of fairness and individualized adjudication. Discretion should be based on reliable evidence and the totality of the circumstances, not categorical assumptions about conduct that may never have been proven. The E-Verify-related requirements may also improperly condition a worker’s eligibility on an employer’s voluntary participation in a federal program. An otherwise eligible individual should not lose the ability to work merely because a current or prospective employer has chosen not to enroll in E-Verify. This would especially harm workers in small businesses, rural communities, domestic work, caregiving, construction, hospitality, and other industries in which employers may lack the resources to assume additional federal compliance burdens. I urge DHS to withdraw this proposal. At minimum, the agency should preserve existing eligibility standards, maintain meaningful individualized review, protect current authorization holders and timely renewal applicants, recognize substantial reliance interests, and reject any presumption based solely on an arrest, unadjudicated allegation, sealed record, expungement, or participation in a diversion program. Immigration enforcement should not be implemented by deliberately depriving families of lawful income. The proposed rule would destabilize communities, punish U.S. citizen and lawful-permanent-resident family members, burden employers, reduce tax contributions, and increase vulnerability to exploitation. These consequences are foreseeable, avoidable, and inconsistent with sound administrative decision-making. For these reasons, I respectfully request that DHS withdraw the proposed rule in its entirety.