Currently, people who are granted political asylum in the U.S. are eligible to apply for permanent residence (a “green card”) one year from the date they are granted asylum. However, there is an annual statutory quota of 10,000 asylees who can be granted permanent residence every year, with the result that there is currently a thirteen-year backlog of asylees waiting for green cards.
Unless they leave the U.S. permanently or are convicted of certain crimes, all people granted asylum will eventually be eligible for permanent residence. Some of them will obtain permanent residence by other means while they are waiting (such as through a U.S. citizen or permanent resident spouse or other close relative).
While asylees are waiting to become permanent residents, they are eligible to apply for work authorization, but it has to be renewed annually (creating a great deal of extra cost and processing delays, plus the need to miss work to go get pictures taken at a USCIS facility). Until they become permanent residents, they cannot receive numerous other benefits – for example, they and their children are generally not considered in-state residents for college tuition purposes, even though they may have actually lived and worked in state, and paid taxes, for years. And they don’t begin to accrue the 5 years necessary to apply for naturalization until they become permanent residents, which has huge implications for their ability to bring over other close family members.
Plus there is the Federal government’s characteristic mismanagement of the administration of immigration functions, which a Federal judge has called “a national embarrassment”:
http://www.aila.org/fileViewer.aspx?docID=12447 (see p. 6)
Should we have an annual cap on the number of people granted asylum to become permanent residents? Given current processing backlogs and the requirement to wait one year after the grant of asylum before applying, if there were no annual quota most would already need to wait about 3 years for their green cards, and another five to apply for naturalization. Isn’t this enough?