FYI, found at visalaw.com:
http://www.visalaw.com/04mar4/1mar404.html
"Today we learned of one more measure that will no doubt go over extremely well. Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) have always been granted for a maximum of one year. These documents allow adjustment of status applicants to work legally while their adjustment applications are pending. Given the fact that adjustment applications can take three or more years to approve in some USCIS locations, it is not unusual for an adjustment applicant to have to renew an EAD two or more times while waiting on adjustment. This is very inconvenient and expensive for applicants. Plus, the USCIS does not consider an applicant to be legally allowed to work just because an EAD extension application is pending, so if an adjustment applicant is not careful about applying a good 90 to 120 days ahead of time for an extension, the applicant can find him/herself out of work.
Today the American Immigration Lawyers Association alerted its members to the fact that the USCIS has sent to the Office of Management and Budget an interim regulation that would allow the USCIS to issue EADs for a period appropriate to the amount of time needed to adjudicate an adjustment of status application. The interim rule was sent to OMB on March 4th and OMB has 90 days to okay the new policy or reject it. We don’t know yet when the change will go into affect and for how long EADs will be granted and how expiration dates will be determined. Another question many people will obviously want to ask is whether a similar change is in the works for advance parole documents. AILA indicated that it does not have the answer to this question yet.
The USCIS is to be congratulated on introducing a sensible solution to a very frustrating problem. Having to get EADs multiple times in the adjustment process results in a tremendous waste of time and money resources for the agency and it makes the adjustment process much more of a hassle for applicants than is genuinely warranted. There are no security implications or other important policy implications tied up with this change. Just a simple, common sense solution to a long-standing problem. We criticize USCIS frequently in this column and probably don’t give the agency credit as often as credit is due. But certainly today we offer our thanks for making taking a step that will make the adjustment process much more customer-friendly."
http://www.visalaw.com/04mar4/1mar404.html
"Today we learned of one more measure that will no doubt go over extremely well. Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) have always been granted for a maximum of one year. These documents allow adjustment of status applicants to work legally while their adjustment applications are pending. Given the fact that adjustment applications can take three or more years to approve in some USCIS locations, it is not unusual for an adjustment applicant to have to renew an EAD two or more times while waiting on adjustment. This is very inconvenient and expensive for applicants. Plus, the USCIS does not consider an applicant to be legally allowed to work just because an EAD extension application is pending, so if an adjustment applicant is not careful about applying a good 90 to 120 days ahead of time for an extension, the applicant can find him/herself out of work.
Today the American Immigration Lawyers Association alerted its members to the fact that the USCIS has sent to the Office of Management and Budget an interim regulation that would allow the USCIS to issue EADs for a period appropriate to the amount of time needed to adjudicate an adjustment of status application. The interim rule was sent to OMB on March 4th and OMB has 90 days to okay the new policy or reject it. We don’t know yet when the change will go into affect and for how long EADs will be granted and how expiration dates will be determined. Another question many people will obviously want to ask is whether a similar change is in the works for advance parole documents. AILA indicated that it does not have the answer to this question yet.
The USCIS is to be congratulated on introducing a sensible solution to a very frustrating problem. Having to get EADs multiple times in the adjustment process results in a tremendous waste of time and money resources for the agency and it makes the adjustment process much more of a hassle for applicants than is genuinely warranted. There are no security implications or other important policy implications tied up with this change. Just a simple, common sense solution to a long-standing problem. We criticize USCIS frequently in this column and probably don’t give the agency credit as often as credit is due. But certainly today we offer our thanks for making taking a step that will make the adjustment process much more customer-friendly."
