Asylum, Part II: A Labor Reservoir Called and Dismissed

Fourteen chapters and three appendices. PERM requires proof that no qualified U.S. worker is available, and F-1 and H-1B work rights are tightly bound to the purpose of the status. Pending asylum, whose legal purpose is not employment at all, can nonetheless yield broad work authorization with no labor-market test. The paper argues that this asymmetry constitutes an asylum labor reservoir, and traces its spillover onto labor allocation in other countries.

Come for work and America tests you hardest. Come with no legal purpose of work, and you may receive the broadest permission to work.

1. 01The tighter a status is tied to work, the more heavily the labor market is tested; the looser the tie, the broader the resulting work right.
2. 02(c)(8) employment authorization is incidental in design and central in practice.
3. 03The reservoir is countercyclical for employers and precarious for workers — the defining trait of guest-worker structures.
4. 04Fiscal analyses (CBO-type) capture only part of the transfer, because the labor-allocation effect crosses borders.
5. 05Walzer's critique applies: admitting labor while deferring membership is a distinct political choice.
6. 06Rule changes to EAD timing shift behavior faster than changes to asylum eligibility ever do.

This page is the abstract and outline. The full text is not published on this site.