Democrats are using a rarely invoked legislative tool to force Republicans on record about work permits for hundreds of thousands of immigrants.
The Setup
Senate Democrats are preparing to use the Congressional Review Act — a procedural tool that allows Congress to overturn executive agency rules — to revive a Biden-era policy that automatically renewed work permits for hundreds of thousands of immigrants. The effort is being led by Senator Jacky Rosen of Nevada, a moderate Democrat from a state President Trump won in 2024.
The target is a rule the Trump administration issued last year that ended automatic renewals of Employment Authorization Documents, effectively forcing hundreds of thousands of workers — many of them long-term residents with pending immigration cases — to lose their work authorization due to application backlogs they have no control over.
What Is the Congressional Review Act?
The Congressional Review Act, or CRA, is a 1996 law that gives Congress the power to overturn federal agency rules within a specific window after they are issued. A CRA resolution requires only a simple majority to pass — not the 60 votes normally needed to overcome a Senate filibuster. That makes it a powerful procedural shortcut.
Senate Republicans used the CRA aggressively in 2025, passing a record 22 resolutions that Trump signed into law. Now Democrats are trying to turn that same tool against the administration.
Rosen is currently collecting signatures from the 30 senators needed to force a floor vote. Her team believes they have 29 session days remaining before the CRA’s 60-day window closes. If the resolution passes the Senate, Trump would almost certainly veto it — but that may not be the point.
The Real Goal: Getting Republicans on the Record
Democrats are clear-eyed about the math. A Trump veto is likely. What they want is a vote — and the political consequences that come with it.
By forcing a floor vote, Democrats would compel every Republican senator to publicly take a position on whether hundreds of thousands of working immigrants should lose their work authorization due to government backlogs. That vote would happen against the backdrop of rising costs, a weakening economy, and widespread anxiety about the impact of the administration’s immigration policies on American businesses and workers.
“At a time when costs are going up and our economy is being weakened, this ill-conceived rule will make matters worse and hurt thousands of hard-working families,” Rosen said.
The framing is deliberate. Democrats are not primarily arguing this on humanitarian grounds — they are arguing it on economic ones, tying the work permit issue directly to the affordability crisis that dominated the 2024 election and continues to define public anxiety heading into the midterm cycle.
Why This Is a Shift for Democrats
For most of 2024 and through the election, Democratic candidates — including those in Senate races — largely distanced themselves from Biden’s immigration record, treating it as a political liability. The border had become one of the most damaging issues for the party.
What has changed? Several things at once.
First, Trump’s immigration overhaul has moved far beyond border enforcement and into the interior of the country — affecting long-term residents, workers, asylum seekers, and mixed-status families in ways that are now directly visible to millions of voters. Second, the killing of two American citizens at immigration protests in Minneapolis in January 2026 galvanized Democratic opposition and gave the party a new moral and political footing. Third, Democrats are withholding votes to fund the Department of Homeland Security — a significant escalation — and say they will not provide them until Trump makes legislative changes to immigration enforcement.
The CRA move on work permits is part of this larger strategic shift: from defensive retreat to active offense.
What Happens to People Without Work Authorization?
The practical consequences of the Trump rule for affected immigrants are serious and immediate.
When work permits expire and automatic renewals are eliminated, immigrants with pending applications — people who applied on time and are legally entitled to work while their cases are processed — lose their jobs. They cannot legally be employed. They cannot support their families. And they did nothing wrong: the backlogs that prevent timely processing are a government problem, not theirs.
The industries most affected include healthcare, agriculture, construction, food service, and domestic care — sectors already under significant labor pressure. U.S. businesses that rely on this workforce face sudden, unplanned staffing gaps with no legal recourse.
What to Watch
Whether Rosen can secure the 30 signatures needed to force the vote is the first test. The 60-day CRA window is closing, which means the timeline is tight. Even if the vote happens and passes — which would require some Republican defections, an unlikely but not impossible scenario — a presidential veto would end it there.
But the political record would remain. Every senator would have cast a vote. And in a cycle where immigration is once again a defining issue, that record matters.
Sources
- Stephen Neukam, Senate Dems Plot Immigration Offensive, Axios, March 2026. https://www.axios.com
- Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 801–808 (1996).
- Senator Jacky Rosen, official statement on Employment Authorization Document renewals, March 2026. https://www.rosen.senate.gov
- U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Automatic Extension of Employment Authorization, policy update 2024–2025. https://www.uscis.gov
- National Immigration Law Center, Work Authorization and the EAD Backlog Crisis, 2025. https://www.nilc.org
- American Immigration Council, The Impact of EAD Delays on Workers and U.S. Businesses, 2025. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org
- Axios, Senate Republicans Used the CRA to Pass a Record 22 Resolutions, 2025. https://www.axios.com
- Congressional Research Service, The Congressional Review Act: Frequently Asked Questions, updated 2025. https://crsreports.congress.gov
