EAD Wait Times
 

Does anybody have any success stories / failures on EAD wait times filed alongside AOS (in my case, L-1B to Spouse Green Card)? I am starting to get anxious with my current L-1B and potential layoffs in this economy, even though I have not heard any reason why I would be a potential layoff candidate...

Re: EAD Wait Times
 

...just to add. I get married on July 3rd to a US Citizen. So the GC/EAD process hasn't even started yet.

Re: EAD Wait Times
 

Even if you did get laid off, if you have a pending petition you are allowed to remain in the US 'under color of authority' until that petition is adjudicated.

Re: EAD Wait Times
 

July 3rd can't come soon enough, then!

Re: EAD Wait Times
 

I guess I would still be in a sticky wicket seeing that I would be unable to accept employment anywhere other than my L-1B petitioning employer...

Re: EAD Wait Times
 

Regular EAD seems to be taking 6 months or so, best to expedite.

Re: EAD Wait Times
 

What is a 'regular' EAD?

Re: EAD Wait Times
 

Are we talking about the i766 card?

We filed our 485, 765 and 131 on Feb 27th. (SRC receipt numbers - Texas I presume).

Had a biometrics interview scheduled for the end of March but that never happened.

Got our 766/131 combos on April 3rd.

Sometime mid April - RFIE for I693

15th May - USCIS received our RFE response.

Crickets..........

Re: EAD Wait Times
 

My wife applied for her EAD based on my L-1B in June last year and received it in December. So just over the 6 month mark.
Similarly two co-workers of mine experienced similar timelines with EAD applications based on an L-1A and an E-2.

USCIS processing time is quoting 5.5-7.5 Months for EAD's based on an AOS at Vermont. Other processing centres might be quicker. Where are you based?

https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/

FWIW expedites are summarily rejected these days so I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Re: EAD Wait Times
 

One where no expedite is requested.

Re: EAD Wait Times
 

Ah. I didn’t know expediting was a thing for EADs. On what grounds would one want to pursue an expedited EAD?

Re: EAD Wait Times
 

Check out the USCIS site, some info there:
https://www.uscis.gov/forms/forms-in...pedite-request

Re: EAD Wait Times
 

Expedites aren’t really a thing anymore.

We spoke to our congressman in November of last year and consistent with forums on the subject the consensus was that expedites we’re offered if you were suffering from cancer for example and needed employment to pay your hospital bills for example.

If your request for an expedite is just that you don’t want to wait then you won’t get one.

Re: EAD Wait Times
 

USCIS may consider an expedite request if it meets one or more of the following criteria:

• Severe financial loss to a company or person, provided that the need for urgent action is not the result of the petitioner’s or applicant’s failure to:
  1. File the benefit request or the expedite request in a reasonable time frame, or
  2. Respond to any requests for additional evidence in a reasonably timely manner;
• Urgent humanitarian reasons;
• Compelling U.S. government interests (such as urgent cases for the Department of Defense or DHS, or other public safety or national security interests); or
• Clear USCIS error.

Re: EAD Wait Times
 

So not really ‘real world’ scenarios then for most. Thanks for the clarification

Re: EAD Wait Times
 

I managed it and documented it in one of my posts.

Re: EAD Wait Times
 

Worth noting though that this experience pre-dates the current guidance on expedites posted above.

Re: EAD Wait Times
 

Is this a policy change? Because the bullets I posted above appear to be the same that I read when I was successful.

Re: EAD Wait Times
 

Yes, the current policy dates from May 2019.

As well as narrowing the criteria upon which an expedite might be granted, the significant change was clarifying that "severe financial loss to a company" means the company would be at risk of failing, and "severe financial loss to a person" could not include the need to take up employment alone.

So previously it might have been possible to argue that you needed an expedite because you had an offer on the table it was going to cost company A $X to hire someone else, and you would miss out on a salary of $200'000 for example. I believe that was a common basis for an expedite request until last year but it would get short shrift now.

Re: EAD Wait Times
 

Roger that.