On October 2, 2008 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released a memorandum from the USCIS Ombudsman discussing the ongoing problem of delays in issuance of Employment Authorization Documents (EADs). By regulation, USCIS is required to issue an EAD within 90 days of application, but this requirement is often not met. To alleviate these delays, the Ombudsman has offered to commit USCIS to undertake the following actions on all pending EAD applications: 1) audit its caseload to identify all EADs pending more than 70 days; 2) accept service requests on pending EADs at the 75 day mark; and 3) adjudicate EADs that are beyond the 90-day processing time within four hours for customers that appear at local offices.

What does this new policy mean to EAD applicants? If the USCIS rank and file follow through on the plan announced by the Ombudsman, the audit by USCIS should sweep out many EADs languishing in the backlog, and get them adjudicated in the near future. For those EADs not cleared by the audit, the new policy of accepting service requests at the 75-day mark should lead to more EADs being issued within the required 90 day timeline. While it is unclear from the memorandum, it appears that the promise of four hour adjudication of EADs in response to an in-person inquiry means that USCIS will produce the EAD card at the Service Center within four hours, not that the local USCIS office will give the individual an EAD card within 4 hours of requesting one.

Time will tell whether these corrective steps will be implemented as planned. Even with these beneficial steps to alleviate delays in EAD processing, we continue to recommend that eligible EAD applicants apply for EAD renewals as early as possible, to avoid the risk that they may have a gap in employment authorization.

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