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Dear <<First Name>>,
Northwest Workers’ Justice Project is excited to announce a new tool for protecting immigrant workers. After years of organizing by immigrant worker advocates across the country, this January, the Department of Homeland Security announced a streamlined process to allow immigrant workers to obtain work authorization and temporary protection from deportation if they are involved in a labor dispute. The changes signal a recognition by the Biden administration that reducing fear and barriers to help immigrant workers feel comfortable coming forward to report abuses to labor agencies is essential to improving working conditions for all workers.
The new process allows workers to request a statement of interest from a local, state, or federal labor agency identifying that an employer is under investigation and requesting DHS grant deferred action or otherwise exercise prosecutorial discretion to any current or former employees who request it to protect workers from potential immigration-status related retaliation. Workers can use that statement of interest to apply for this temporary protection from DHS, allowing them to come forward to participate in the labor agency investigation with confidence. This in turn will allow the labor agencies to do more thorough investigations and take appropriate enforcement actions so that all employers can be held accountable for respecting workers’ rights.
NWJP received one of the first labor agency statement of interests last fall (before the finalized process was announced by DHS) in connection with a charge filed with the National Labor Relations Board on behalf of a group of workers whose employer terminated them for joining together to protest the frequent late payment of their wages. A worker involved in the dispute was recently granted of deferred action and expects to receive a work permit soon!
We recently expanded our capacity to provide immigration legal services to clients who may be eligible for deferred action and are looking forward to helping more workers access these new protections as they defend their workplace rights.
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