AILA Doc. No. 20071530 | Dated July 14, 2020
In recent weeks, AILA has received reports from members of delays in the issuance of EADs and green cards for some employment-based, family-based, and asylum-based immigration applications.
On July 9, the Washington Post reported that USCIS has shut down printing of documents evidencing legal status and work authorization for immigrants and nonimmigrants, including green cards and employment authorization documents (EAD), in Corbin, KY, weeks ago, and USCIS has scaled back printing at the second facility in Lee's Summit, MO, resulting in massive delays. USCIS blames "financial concerns," for their failure to renew the contract with the printing company despite never alerting Congress. According to a USCIS, approximately 50,000 green cards and 75,000 other employment authorization documents promised to immigrants and nonimmigrants haven't been printed.
If your client has been affected by USCIS's failure to provide evidence of legal status and work authorization for your client, AILA's Administrative Litigation Task Force (ALTF) provides a sample complaint for a writ of mandamus to compel USCIS to issue the plaintiff's EAD after USCIS failed to issue the EAD within a reasonable time following the agency's approval of the plaintiff's application for employment authorization.
In light of USCIS’s $1.2 billion funding crisis, AILA encourages its members to take action by contacting your members of Congress and urging them to ensure that USCIS is funded but that such funding must be conditioned on key changes centered on transparency, fiscal responsibility, and efficiency. Also request that your members of Congress support the bipartisan Case Backlog and Transparency Act of 2020 (H.R. 5971) to address crisis-level delays that are crippling the agency’s case processing.
Cite as AILA Doc. No. 20071530.