Chicago Alderman: Giving Work Permits to Asylum Seekers Just Means They’ll Stay Despite Not Being Allowed to

On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Varney & Co.,” Chicago Alderman Raymond Lopez stated that giving work permits to asylum seekers in America is “just perpetuating the inevitable that they’re all going to be found as not having merit to be here, and then expect them to fully, at some point, self-deport, which we have seen, historically, never happens.”

Lopez said, “I think one of the things that we have to be clear about is the fact that we have two different categories that we’re discussing. We have the asylum seekers, who are automatically going to get Social Security numbers and work permits eventually, and then we have those undocumented individuals that have already been in our cities, who have been waiting for a pathway forward. I believe that if we are going to have a true conversation, that we don’t need to conflate the two, because it’s very disrespectful and insulting to those communities that have been waiting for a pathway forward to legitimize their residency, who are now being leapfrogged by the asylum seekers. Right now, we are seeing at least 2,000 migrant asylum seekers in the City of Chicago alone who have gotten both Social Security numbers, as well as work permits for their stay until their merit hearing. So, we know that the administration is working to provide that for them.”

Host Stuart Varney then asked, “But do you approve of that? They are illegals, [they’ve] not got their court hearing yet, but they can work. Do you approve of that?”

Lopez answered, “No, I disagree with the fact that Secretary Mayorkas and President Biden allowed for the manipulation of our asylum process to bring us to this point. I think that, we know, flat-out, that wanting work, which is the number one reason a vast majority of these individuals are here, is not grounds for asylum in the United States. And we’re just perpetuating the inevitable that they’re all going to be found as not having merit to be here, and then expect them to fully, at some point, self-deport, which we have seen, historically, never happens. I believe that Congress should have stepped in months ago to put an end to this, to force the Biden administration to secure the border and to do what was necessary to protect the United States and our country in this moment.”

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