Breaking Immigration News: Work Permit Relief Coming for 800,000 Immigrants!!

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Welcome back to ImmigrationLawyerBlog! In this video, attorney Jacob Sapochnick discusses a new rule from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that will provide relief to nearly 800,000 applicants seeking a renewal of their employment authorization document also known as a work permit by automatically extending certain EADs from 6 months to 18 months.

Overview

On April 4, 2020, USCIS announced a temporary final rule (TFR) that increases the automatic extension period for employment authorization and EADs available to certain EAD renewal applicants from up to 180 days (6 months) to up to 540 days (or 18 months) from the printed expiration date of a previously issued EAD. 

Effective April 8, 2024, this temporary final rule will apply to two categories of EAD applicants:

(1) applicants who timely and properly filed their Form I-765 applications on or after October 27, 2023, if the application is still pending on April 8, 2024; and

(2) applicants who timely and properly file their Form I-765 application on or after April 8, 2024 and on or before September 30, 2025 (540 days after publication of this temporary final rule in the Federal Register).

Applicants must have one of these qualifying eligibility categories to receive an automatic extension of their employment authorization and/or EAD validity: A03, A05, A07, A08, A10, A12, A17*, A18*, C08, C09, C10, C16, C19, C20, C22, C24, C26*, and C31.  These eligibility categories are published on the USCIS Automatic EAD Extension webpage.

This exciting new development will prevent workforce interruptions by allowing renewal applicants to continue to work while their EAD renewal applications are pending with USCIS. It also provides relief for up to 80,000 U.S. employers who depend upon such workers to operate their businesses. Finally, this rule will help reduce the current EAD backlogs so that immigrants can become employed faster than ever before.

Additionally, USCIS has also informed the public of the steps it has been taking to ensure faster issuance of EADs. This includes:

  • Cutting EAD processing times in half for individuals with pending green card applications from FY2021 to date
  • Processing a record number of EAD applications in the past year
  • Conducting community outreach to educate the public regarding employment authorization eligibility and provided on-the-ground intake support of applications
  • Cutting down EAD processing times for asylum applicants and certain parolees to less than or equal to a 30-day median,
  • Increasing the EAD validity period for certain categories from 2 years to 5 years
  • Improving the EAD application process for refugees, and
  • Expanding online filing of EADs to asylum applications and parolees.

For more information about this new rule, please see our helpful links below.

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