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James48's JournalFederal Asylum Officers Blast New Biden Rule as Contrary to Legal, Moral Obligations
From http://www.govexec.com
Federal Asylum Officers Blast New Biden Rule as Contrary to Legal, Moral Obligations
Management has told employees they understand the concerns, but employees will either have to comply or quit.
MARCH 30, 2023
By Eric Katz
The Biden’s administration’s plan to severely restrict asylum approvals is drawing outcry from the Homeland Security Department employees who would implement the policy, with the staffers calling it unlawful and “contrary to the moral fabric of our nation.”
Asylum personnel said they would have to violate their oaths to carry out the yet-to-be-implemented policy. They have voiced their concerns to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service leadership, who told them at a recent town hall that, assuming the proposal is finalized, they can either follow the guidance or find a new job.
The union that represents USCIS employees—the American Federation of Government Employees Council 119—filed its complaints as a comment on the proposed rule DHS and the Justice Department put forward in February. To be able to apply for asylum, the rule would require immigrants who entered U.S. territory after first traveling through another country to have either applied for asylum elsewhere during their travels, made an appointment at a port of entry through a DHS app or received parole through a limited program.
“At their core, the measures that the proposed rule seeks to implement are inconsistent with the asylum law enacted by Congress, the treaties the United States has ratified, and our country’s moral fabric and longstanding tradition of providing safe haven to the persecuted,” the union said in its comment, which was first reported by the Los Angeles Times. “Rather, it is draconian and represents the elevation of a single policy goal—reducing the number of migrants crossing the southwest border—over human life and our country’s commitment to refugees.”
More: https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2023/03/federal-asylum-officers-blast-new-biden-rule-contrary-legal-moral-obligations/384640/
Federal Employee Union Membership is Up 20%
Since implementation of a number of pro-labor policies a year ago, federal employee unions gained 80,000 new dues-paying members.
By ERICH WAGNER , http://govexec.com | MARCH 20, 2023 05:21 PM ET
UNIONS
Vice President Kamala Harris’ office last week touted early progress in the Biden administration’s effort to strengthen the federal workforce by improving worker empowerment, boasting a sizeable increase in the number of federal employees who are dues-paying union members.
In February 2022, the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, chaired by Harris and then-Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, issued its first report, which contained more than 70 recommendations for federal agencies to make it easier for employees in both the federal and private sectors to organize or join a union.
The task force asked federal agencies to foster collaborative relationships with their union partners, involve labor organizations in predecisional policy discussions, and remove barriers from unions trying to increase their membership or organize new bargaining units. The group recommended that the Office of Personnel Management instruct agencies to provide information on whether job openings are represented by unions and encourage agencies to provide unions more opportunities to communicate with new hires.
In a blog post last week, the vice president’s office announced that just a year after agencies began implementing the task force’s recommendations, the initiative is already paying dividends: over the last year, nearly 80,000 federal employees have joined a union, increasing the total number of dues paying union members at federal agencies by 20%. And in the private sector, petitions for union representation increased 53% from fiscal 2021 to fiscal 2022, while overall union membership grew by 273,000 last year.
More: https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2023/03/federal-employee-union-membership-20/384205/
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