In June the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) ended its contract with an external vendor responsible for printing Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) and Lawful Permanent Resident Cards (“Green Cards”) in an effort to hire federal employees to replace these outside contractors. However, given USCIS’s massive budget deficit, which may result in 70% of its workforce being furloughed on August 3rd, 2020, if it does not receive a Congressional bailout, they are currently subject to a hiring freeze, which has significantly reduced it’s capacity to print these documents.
USCIS has indicated that it expects these document production delays to continue for the foreseeable future and notes that, if furloughs are implemented, they may become worse.
These delays in card production have already impacted the issuance of approximately 125,000 secure documents by individuals who are awaiting the production of these documents to evidence their lawful status and/or U.S. employment authorization.
Some individuals have begun suing USCIS, filing mandamus actions, to compel production of these documents and the immigration bar as a whole is urging the agency to come up with an interim solution such as extended grace periods, temporary cards, or permitting the use of approval notices for a period of time until the physical card is produced.
UPDATE - On August 19th, 2020, USCIS announced that “Due to the extraordinary and unprecedented COVID-19 public health emergency, the production of certain Employment Authorization Documents (Form I-766, EAD) is delayed. As a result, employees may use Form I-797, Notice of Action, with a Notice date on or after December 1, 2019 through and including August 20, 2020 informing an applicant of approval of an Application for Employment Authorization (Form I-765) as a Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, List C #7 document that establishes employment authorization issued by the Department of Homeland Security pursuant to 8 C.F.R. 274a.2(b)(1)(v)(C)(7), even though the Notice states it is not evidence of employment authorization. Employees may present their Form I-797 Notice of Action showing approval of their I-765 application as a list C document for Form I-9 compliance until December 1, 2020.”
The announcement further confirms that the I-797 must be presented in conjunction with a List B document to confirm identity and that once the EAD card is received and no later than December 1, 2020, employers must reverify impacted employees who presented this Form I-797 Notice of Action as a List C document. These employees will need to present their employers with new evidence of employment authorization from either List A or List C.
D&S will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates as they become available.