On Tuesday, USCIS announced they are increasing
the automatic extention period for EADs by a full year to 540 days.
This extension will prevent thousands of immigrants
from losing their job and even allow those with expired permits
to get back to work while they wait for USCIS to process their renewal.
So when does this take effect and what does it mean
if you currently have a renewal for your work authorization pending?
We will discuss these details
as well as when you can get back to work if your EAD has already expired.
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Currently, USCIS automatically extends your work permit for 180 days
when you file for a renewal in certain categories, which allows you to continue
to legally work while they process your application.
But the backlogs have increased processing times for these renewals
so much that this 180 days is not enough, leading to thousands
of immigrants losing their jobs because they are unable to work.
On April 6th, USCIS Director Ur Jaddou testified to the House Committee
on Appropriations that the current backlog for work
permits is around 1.5 million applications.
So if I could just point out that in January of 2017,
there were 1.5 million cases in the backlog.
So those beyond our processing goals—our cycle time goals.
And...
In total across the agency.
That alone is what is pending in the employment authorization queue now.
While the agency is in the process of hiring more staff
to help clear this backlog and speed up the processing time,
they have said it will take until the end of 2023 to reach their goal
of a three month processing time for EAD renewals.
That is why they are enacting this new temporary rule to extend the automatic
extension period from 180 days to 540 days, which is 18 months.
This went into effect on May 4th and is set to last until the end of 2023.
There are three groups of people who will benefit from this new rule.
The first is anyone who has an EAD renewal currently pending with USCIS,
who has filed their form I-765 and whose current work authorization
has not expired or their current auto extension has not yet lapsed.
The next is any applicants who files their I-765
through October 27th, 2023 when this new rule is set to expire.
For these first two groups, this rule means an additional 360 days
will be added to their existing 180 day extension period,
for a total of 18 months.
And the third group is those with pending renewals who are already experiencing
a gap in their employment authorization or work permit validity.
For these applicants, their ability to work will be reinstated effective
May 4th and will be extended by 540 days from the expiration date on their EAD.
The extension will end for all three of these groups
when USCIS makes a final decision on their renewal application
or the 18 month period comes to an end, whichever is first.
This change will significantly help the approximately 87,000 immigrants
whose work authorization lapsed or is set to lapse in the next 30 days.
It is estimated that as many as 4.2 million immigrants will be protected
from losing their ability to work over the course of this policy.
Many theorize that USCIS is choosing to expand the automatic extension
by such a significant period of time because they intend to shift
their resources to focus on speeding up new work authorization applications.
This will help new applicants avoid getting stuck in a backlog
while still ensuring those applying
for renewals are not at risk of losing their ability to work.
What do you think?
Will USCIS actually clear the backlog of EAD applications?
Leave me a comment below and let me know.
USCIS recently
announced several other important new policies to end the case backlog.
If you want to hear more about them, I will include a link to that video here.
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