Non-Immigrant Employees With Expiring Employment Authorization Documents Get A Lifeline From DHS

The Department of Homeland Security announced that, effective May 4, 2022, the government was temporarily extending the automatic extension period for certain I-765 Employment Authorization Documents (EADs).

Currently, eligible employees in certain categories who timely filed to renew their EADs before they expired could continue to work with their I-797 Receipt Notice for 180-days beyond the expiration date on their EADs, while waiting for their approval notices or new cards to arrive. But, with the current backlog in processing times for EAD renewals, DHS has extended this "automatic renewal" period beyond 180-days.

In fact, the automatic-renewal period has been extended for an additional 360 days, for a total of 540 days. To qualify for this longer automatic extension, employees would have had to have timely applied to renew their EADs. However, even if an employee's EAD had already expired, the validity of their EAD will automatically resume beginning