MM15 Comment Submitted by Aditya Cherukupalli

RIN 1615-AC98 Re: Clarification of Discretionary Employment Authorization for Certain Aliens, 91 FR 34352 To Whom It May Concern: I am writing to oppose this proposed rule. [Introduce yourself in one or two sentences. For example: I am an F-1 student authorized for STEM OPT and I work as a Software Engineer at a company in WA. This rule would directly affect my ability to work lawfully in the United States, and I do not believe the Department has justified the changes it proposes. My central concern is that the rule takes categories of work authorization that have always functioned as eligibility based and predictable, and rewrites the general provisions at 8 CFR 274a.12(c) and 274a.13 so that a single arrest becomes a basis to deny the work permit. Under the rule as written, an applicant who has merely been arrested for, charged with, or indicted for any criminal act is presumed not to warrant a favorable exercise of discretion, and that presumption applies even where the charge was dropped, dismissed, resolved through a diversion program, or later sealed or expunged. Treating an arrest that led to no conviction as the deciding factor is fundamentally unfair. In our legal system an arrest is not proof of wrongdoing, and a dismissal or expungement is supposed to mean the matter is closed. This rule would turn a closed, favorable outcome into a permanent mark against a person’s ability to earn a living. This is a sharp and unexplained departure from how these cases are handled today. Right now, when an applicant has an old arrest with no conviction, the agency asks for the court records, the final disposition, and evidence of the person’s positive equities, and it weighs everything together. Applicants with clean dispositions and strong records are routinely approved under that individualized balancing. The proposed rule would replace that balancing with a near automatic presumption of denial, and the only way the rule allows an applicant to overcome it is by showing a significant countervailing public interest, which the Department describes almost entirely as assisting law enforcement. Ordinary students, spouses, and green card applicants have no realistic way to make that showing. In effect, the rule strips away the very factors, family, work history, tax compliance, community ties, and a favorable case outcome, that currently allow these applications to be approved. The Department does not acknowledge that it is reversing its own working practice, and it does not explain why that reversal is justified. A change of this magnitude, made without a reasoned explanation and without accounting for the reliance interests of people who are lawfully working today, is arbitrary. I am an international student, and my practical training is the reason I chose to study in the United States and the bridge between my degree and my career. Practical training has always been a straightforward process. My school certifies my eligibility, I file on time, and I receive my card. This rule injects broad discretion and a criminal history standard into that process for the first time. Many students have a minor, years old incident on their record, a citation, a misunderstanding, a charge that was dismissed, that never affected their studies or their standing. Under this rule, that kind of long resolved matter could cost a student the ability to complete the training their degree was built around, and could cost an American employer a worker they invested in training. That serves no one. I am also concerned about the requirement that every applicant in these categories submit biometrics for every initial and renewal filing. For people who present no identified security concern, this adds cost, adds processing delay, and creates a new way for an application to be denied simply because of a missed or mis-scheduled appointment. Layering this universal requirement on top of the discretionary presumption compounds the burden on families and employers who have done nothing wrong. Finally, the rule’s statement that these decisions are within the sole and unreviewable discretion of the agency would leave applicants with no meaningful recourse when a work permit is wrongly denied. Combined with a presumption triggered by a bare arrest, that is a recipe for erroneous denials that no one can correct. For these reasons I urge the Department to withdraw this rule. At a minimum, I ask the Department to exclude eligibility based categories, including F-1 practical training under (c)(3), H-4 spouses under (c)(26), and applicants for adjustment of status under (c)(9), from the criminal history presumption, and to preserve the individualized, totality of the circumstances review that currently allows these applications to be fairly decided. Thank you for considering my comment. Respectfully, Aditya Cherukupalli