EAD (WorkPermit)

Hi!

I found out this trick on how you can track your EAD once your status has changed to "NEW CARD ORDERD".

1. Visit the US Post Office website www.usps.com
2. Create an account (upper right corner, click on "register")
3. Log in to your new account
4. Go to "Track & Manage"
5. Go to "Preferences"

This area includes the following message:

"Preferences
Update your notification preferences to have My USPS™ inform you of tracking information via email and/or text message."

6. Sign up for email/text updates of upcoming shipments.

Once you do that, you will be notified when someone is trying to ship something to your address or when a shipping label is created with your address on it.

I did this yesterday and got an email saying that a shipping label was created for my address. It is obviously my EAD Card.

Anyway, this provided me with the tracking number without the need to depend on USCIS to post it online.

I learned that this service is not available for every address, but still, worth a shot!

Hope it helps!

Hi! I wanted to share my experience throughout my EAD process.
I am applying for a new EAD based on an L2 Visa. The following is what I did to help my case. I am in no way an expert and this is testimony is aimed at giving others some ideas rather than telling them exactly what they need to do.
Day 1: (Mid-January) Confirmation of Application Receipt. Case was sent to Nebraska Service Center.
Day 25: – Received an note that there was an error with my address. I had to submit a request to have my address updated.
Day 35: – Received Notice of Action stating my case was received
Day 75: I submitted a SR Request to get an update on my case… received the following generic response:
“U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) records show your case is in line to be reviewed by an officer. We ask that you allow additional time for this process to take place since we process these cases in the order received. If after 60 days you have not received anything in the mail, please contact the National Customer Service Center (NCSC) at the number provided below.”

Moral of this: no use contacting them before day 75

Day 95 – Received a job offer. At the same time, I submitted a second SR Request stating that my case was beyond processing time. Got the same generic response as the one I posted above.

I did some research and read a lot of blogs. Based on what I read, here’s what I decided to do:

Step 1: Contact Ombudsmen

Who are they and why should I contact them?

This is an agency that is somewhat independent from USCIS and is aimed at helping people with their cases. To contact this office, you need to fill out an online form found on the following link:
https://cisomb.dhs.gov/oca/form7001.aspx

Step 2: Contact my local Senator’s office.

Why would you contact them?

Apparently, the office of your local Senator or Congressman has people amongst their staff who are dedicated to help you if you have any issues with a Federal Agency. Even if you are not a US Citizen.

How can they help?

Offices of Senators or Congressman can contact USCIS on your behalf and may help you jump a few loops. Apparently, when they contact USCIS they reach out to a specific area (NSC Congressional Unit) who deals with requests from State or Local officials. This obviously guarantees that your case has a more “personalized” treatment.

Although there is no guarantee that they will be able to provide a positive outcome for your case, it is my personal experience that they do help getting your case noticed.

How to contact them?

A simple google search should be enough to find out who your local Congressman or Senator is. From that, find the telephone number of the office in your region (they usually have an office in Washington and an office in your state. Contact the office in your state) give the office a call and say the following:

“I am a constituent from your area and would like support regarding a case with a Federal Agency”. They will transfer you to the person in charge of that. The federal agency we are dealing with here is USCIS (United States Citizen and Immigration Services).

In my experience, the person in charge of these affairs was unavailable at the moment so I left a voicemail. Voicemail said the exact same line, with a little bit more detail: “I am a constituent from your area and would like support regarding an immigration case with USCIS”. Then left my name and phone number.

I later received a call from this person and requested me to fill out a Privacy Release form. This form basically authorizes the Senator’s office to contact USCIS on your behalf. In addition to this, I was instructed to provide all necessary documentation to support my case.

I am copy-pasting an extract from the letter I submitted to the office, so you can have an idea of how I structured the paperwork:
__________________

“ Dear Honorable Senator (#Insert Senator Name#) ,

I thank you in advance for your time and support on this matter which is crucial to me. I currently reside in (#Insert City + State#) and am requesting your support with an open process at a federal agency.
My request for support involves the federal agency USCIS. I am currently under an L-2 visa. I have applied for My EAD and received notice of my application (form I-765) being received on (#Insert Date#).
In this tough economy, I managed to get a full time job offer with (#mention details of Job Offer if available#). Nevertheless, if there are not updates on my case, my job offer will only be valid for (#XX#) more days in the hope that my work permit will arrive by then.
Today, it has been close to (#XX#) days since my application was accepted. I have tried calling USCIS customer support without any luck. I kindly ask for your assistance on helping me expedite the processing of my EAD.

Here are my details:

Name:
Receipt Number: LIN YYYY YYYY X
Received Date:
Job offer details:
Company:
Position:
Location:

Please find attached the following additional documentation:
- Privacy Release forms
- Photocopy of L2 Visa
- Form I-797C Notice of Action indicating my request has been accepted for processing.
- Current processing times as stated on USCIS website as of (insert current date)
- Job Assignment Confirmation (Job Offer)

Again, I am deeply grateful for your support.
Best,
(Name)
(Address)
_____________
I scanned and emailed the letter and paperwork to my Senator’s office.
My dilemma was: “Should I contact my congressman as well?”
Eventually, I did contact my congressman and was instructed to do the same process. However, I received a response back saying that there was a request to expedite my case submitted by the Senator’s office. Congressman’s staff mentioned that it is not recommended to contact more than one because it could lead to confusion and could make things worse rather than helping out. So, my advice is to pick one until you have exhausted all potential assistance from that office.
Day 103: Received call from Senator’s office saying that my case was assigned to an officer to see if it could be expedited. Staff mentioned that if it was NOT expedited, it would be difficult to know, because they only inform if the case had been approved, hence, if we didn’t hear back from them in a week, we should assume that the case was not approved and we should try something else.
Day 104: Submitted an SR Request to get an update on my case. Received the following message:
“Your case is currently under review by an officer. You should receive a decision, correspondence or notice of other action within 60 days of the date of this letter.”

Day 106: Around 10:00 am, my status changed to “New Card is being produced”. Not 10 minutes after that, I received a call from the Senator’s office informing me of this update. They told me that I should expect the card sometime between 5 and 7 business days and offered to help me follow-up if the card hasn’t arrived a week from today.

Hoping to get my card anytime now. Very excited.

I hope this long post serves as information to you. USCIS is very vague in their release of information and I completely empathize with anyone else who is going through this process.

My key recommendations on this matter:

Once you hit the 90 day mark:
1. Raise an SR Request and contact the ombudsman.
2. Build up a case to have your request expedited. There are several situations that could get your case expedited. A job offer is the most common and easiest, but it is not the only one.
3. Contact local Congressman/Senator. I found this to be very very helpful.
Not sure who to contact? A Senator’s office is technically “higher” in the political chain, and it worked perfectly for me, however, I had been told that Congressman’s office are usually better at this kind of things. Anyway, I guess it all depends on the office.

Best of luck to everyone out there. I hope this gives you a little hope on your case. Again, I am not an expert or anything of that sort. I am just an average person who applied for the EAD in the same was as everybody else. This post is not meant to be a detailed guide of “what to do” in such cases. That being said, I hope sharing my experience can provide some assistance to someone else who is going through this same process.

Hello everyone

This forum has been really useful for me so far. So I am writing down the complete EAD story wishing it may be useful for someone. I am the person who recently added the experience starting "My EAD card production stuck". Got my card finally two days ago.

Jan 14: Applied jointly for I-485, I-765 and I-131
Jan 19 (Day 0): USCIS received the application
Jan 27: Check is cashed, received emails-texts about receipt numbers
Jan 30: Received the official receipt documents.
Feb 18: Did the biometrics
Mar 3: Received a job offer. Although I was on H1-b, we decided to go with the EAD instead of the H1-b transfer. So I chose the start date of April 18th, since it is the Day 90, and I should be getting the EAD by then (supposedly).
April 14 (Day 86): Called the USCIS and put service request.
April 15 (Day 87): Called the USCIS and put an expediting request, specifically saying that I have a job with a start date of April 18th.
April 22 (Day 94): Received the mail saying "Fax your offer letter to us for expediting". The same day I rushed to the Fedex office and faxed my offer letter.
April 23 (Day 95): My I-765 case switched to "Card Production Ordered"
April 26 (Day 98): My I-765 case switched to "Case Approved"
April 30 (Day 102): My I-765 case switched to "Card is delivered to my mail". I run to my mailbox, and yes it was there! At the same time they are also providing a USPS tracking number in the page, which was useless at that point.

And I finally started my job today (May 2nd).

So my takeaways from this experience:
- Start pushing USCIS by service requests starting from Day 75.
- If you have a job offer on hand, put an expediting request ASAP. I heard that if you are applying through F-1 visa, this may not work though.
- Their system is not consistent from application to application. I was expecting a "Card mailed" status after the "Card production ordered". So I kinda panicked after not seeing it for a long time. But apparently, I received the card without even seeing that status.

Good luck!

Hi everyone,

I am an L2 holder and have filed at the Vermont office for my EAD 45 days ago. Reading the blog has been very dissapointing as I thought that obtaining the permit should take around 90 days, but now I can see that it could take much longer.

Could anyone recommend what the best strategy would be to obtain it timely? I called the UCIS and an automatic message states that they received my case and that´s all. Should I call or email the Ombudsman with an offer letter? would that help? any suggestions??

This is so frustrating.

Thanks.

Hello friends

My EAD card production seems to be stuck. Can I get your thoughts on this? I applied the EAD jointly with I-485 and I-131. Here is the most recent timeline:

April 23: Case status switched from "Case Received" to "Card Production Ordered"
April 26: Case status switched from "Card Production Ordered" to "Case Approved"

Since then no change in the status as of today (April 29). Next step should be "Card mailed" right? And isn't it taking too much time? Since I see from the experiences here people receive their cards in about 1 week after the "Card Production Ordered" notice.

Thanks for the answers in advance.

Seems like processing times were updated yesterday.

You can check them out at:

https://egov.uscis.gov/cris/processTimesDisplayInit.do

For all of you processing an EAD based on an L2 using form I-765,

Nebraska, Texas and California remain the same (3 months processing for the most part)

Vermont was updated. It shows a little over 6 months.

I submitted my application in January 19 of this year on Nebraska Center. Still no update, but working towards trying to get it expedited because I have a job offer on the line.

Hi All,

So it seems like I have been finally approved, even though it says new card being produced (nothing about approval), but I hope that means approval. It took about 127 days. Lets see when I receive the card now. Fingers crossed and hoping that all of you still waiting for your approval get it super soon!!

Guys I applied for OPT authorization, and got my EAD card on Apr 20. But I have still not got my 'Notice of Approval' (I-797) !

Any idea?

i called up USCIS. But they told me to file another document I824 to get a duplicate notice of approval. But it costs 400$ or more to file that..

1) Does it take time to get Notice of approval after card?
2)Is it required anymore? since I have my EAD card now..

3)Which of these you need to extend driver's license. My state is Ohio (general comments are okay too)

Applied January 13
Day 93 contacted Ombudsman and Congressman
Day 96 Congressman office called an told they will work in my case
Day 101 System updated "New card is being produced" we
Ordered your new card and will be mailed to the address you gave us
My question here is, if that means it has been approved???
I see some comments saying first card being produced and then approved
And for me that means that they are working on it and can request more info,
I don't know, can somebody help?

I have applied my L2 Ead

17th january-sent documents to USCIS
19th january-USCIS Received the documents
25th january-Received I797 notice

But till now i did not get ead still it is showing intial case status