News Update - July 26, 2008

By Alan Lee, Esq.^†‡

Refugees Get Another Year Before Having to Renew Their Employment Authorization Documents (EAD)

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently announced that it will be extending the validity of initial employment authorization requirements for refugees from one year to two years. Until now, it was estimated that a refugee would have to request, at a minimum, one EAD renewal before becoming a permanent resident. The purpose of this extension is to allow refugees to avoid having to pay a $340 renewal fee before having their status adjusted to permanent resident. The policy change ensures consistency in the validity periods for initial EADs issued to both refugees and asylees (USCIS began issuing two-year initial EADs to asylees in 2006).

† The author is a 26+ year practitioner of immigration law based in New York City. He was awarded the Sidney A. Levine prize for best legal writing at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 1977 and has written extensively on immigration over the past years for the ethnic newspapers, World Journal, Sing Tao, Pakistan Calling, Muhasha and OCS. He has testified as an expert on immigration in civil court proceedings and was recognized by the Taiwan government in 1985 for his work protecting human rights. His article, "The Bush Temporary Worker Proposal and Comparative Pending Legislation: an Analysis" was Interpreter Releases' cover display article at the American Immigration Lawyers Association annual conference in 2004, and his victory in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a case of first impression nationwide, Firstland International v. INS, successfully challenged INS' policy of over 40 years of revoking approved immigrant visa petitions under a nebulous standard of proof. Its value as precedent, however, was short-lived as it was specifically targeted by the Administration in the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004.

‡ This article © 2008 Alan Lee, Esq.

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