Improve Refugee Travel Document Validity Period and Wait Times
Improve Refugee Travel Document Validity Period and Wait Times
We represent a community of over 500 refugees and asylees through an online support group, raising our voices on behalf of countless others facing similar challenges.
As of now, it takes about 16 months from the application date to get a Refugee Travel Document, and its validity period is just one year. This means that we wait for the document longer than we can use it for its purpose.
This situation makes us unable to:
- Attend family events of great importance such as weddings or funerals;
- Seek employment for positions that require international travel;
- Reunite with family members.
The solution that we propose includes two steps:
Step 1
Increase Refugee Travel Document validity from 1 year to 2-5 years. This will allow us to use the document for a longer period and reduce the number of applications we file every year. Thus this measure will reduce USCIS officers’ workload, and the relieved workforce should be used to work on our second proposal.
Step 2
Shorten Refugee Travel Document application wait time from 16 months to 6 months. This change would not only align with US law, which states that “processing of an immigration benefit application should be completed not later than 180 days after the initial filing of the application” (8 U.S. Code § 1571), but also significantly benefit refugees by reducing unnecessary delays.