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‘This is about one thing: making our country whiter’: Pingree Condemns DHS Proposal that Would Pause Work Permits for All Asylum Seekers

Washington, February 20, 2026
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today announced a new proposed rule that would pause work permit issuance for people with pending asylum applications. This change represents a sweeping erosion to employment authorization for asylum seekers. Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) condemned the proposal, releasing the following statement:
 
The new rule announced by DHS is one of the cruelest changes to our immigration policies that I’ve seen during my time in Congress. It will have devastating consequences for thousands of Mainers and millions of people across the country. This isn’t about ‘restoring integrity’ to our asylum system. It’s about punishing asylum seekers, making it impossible to build lives and families here, and creating the conditions to detain and deport as many people as possible.

The overwhelming majority of asylum seekers living in the U.S. have fled truly horrific conditions in their home countries, including targeted violence, persecution, and political oppression. To suggest that they are frauds, or somehow gaming the system, is both grossly inaccurate and deeply insulting. These are human beings. They’re our neighbors and coworkers. They show up to work, send their kids to school, volunteer in their communities, and contribute to our economy every single day. Treating people as disposable political targets denies their humanity—and diminishes us all.

If DHS was serious about reducing backlogs, it would use a fraction of the hundreds of billions of dollars currently at its disposal to invest in more asylum officers. Instead, they’re using a bureaucratic logjam as an excuse to target millions of people for eventual deportation—all to meet some made-up quota from Stephen Miller. 

This rule change will make our immigration system less humane, more dysfunctional, and further undermine America’s longstanding commitment to humanitarian protection. It won’t make us safer, it won’t make us stronger, and it sure as hell won’t do anything to reverse the profound economic damage that this Administration is doing to our economy. This is about one thing: making our country whiter. Because people like Donald Trump and Stephen Miller believe that’s what will ‘Make America Great Again.’ Nothing could be further from the truth. 
 
Pingree is the author of the Asylum Seeker Work Authorization Act, a bipartisan bill backed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and dozens of national and state immigration groups that would reduce the current 180-day waiting period for work authorization eligibility to 30 days, allowing an asylum seeker to apply for authorization as soon as the asylum claim is filed. 
 
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