The United States has announced that it will issue employment authorization cards, including those for individuals awaiting green cards, with a validity period of five years. This decision is expected to benefit thousands of Indians residing in the US. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has extended the maximum validity period of Employment Authorization Documents (EAD) to five years for both initial and renewal EADs for specific non-citizens who require employment authorization.
These include individuals seeking asylum, withholding of removal, adjustment of status under INA 245, and suspension of deportation or cancellation of removal. By increasing the maximum EAD validity period to five years, the USCIS aims to reduce the number of new Forms I-765, Application for Employment Authorization, it receives for EAD renewals in the coming years, which will help lower processing times and backlogs.
The employment authorization of non-citizens is contingent on their underlying status, circumstances, and EAD filing category. For instance, if someone received an EAD under a category based on a pending adjustment of status application for five years, and their adjustment application is subsequently denied, their employment authorization may expire before the EAD’s expiry date.
A recent study has revealed that more than 1.05 million Indians are in line for an employment-based Green Card, with an alarming statistic suggesting that around 400,000 of them may not receive permanent residency before they pass away.
The study, conducted by David J Bier of the Cato Institute, an American libertarian think tank, indicated that the backlog of employment-based Green Cards reached a record high of 1.8 million cases this year. Of these, 1.1 million cases are from India (63 percent), and an additional nearly 250,000 cases are from China (14 percent).
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Source: Hindustan Times
