Removal of the Automatic Extension of Employment Authorization Documents

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <CFR>8 CFR Part 274a</CFR> <DEPDOC>[CIS No. 2826-25; DHS Docket No. USCIS-2025-0271]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1615-AD05</RIN> <SUBJECT>Removal of the Automatic Extension of Employment Authorization Documents</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Department of Homeland Security (DHS). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Interim final rule (“IFR”) with request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This IFR amends DHS regulations to end the practice of automatically extending the validity of employment authorization documents (Forms I-766 or EADs) for aliens who have timely filed an application to renew their EAD in certain employment authorization categories. The purpose of this change is to prioritize the proper vetting and screening of aliens before granting a new period of employment authorization and/or a new EAD. This IFR does not impact the validity of EADs that were automatically extended prior to October 30, 2025 or which are otherwise automatically extended by law or <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This IFR is effective on October 30, 2025. Comments must be received on or before December 1, 2025. The electronic Federal Docket Management System will accept comments prior to midnight Eastern time at the end of that day. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments on the entirety of this IFR, identified by DHS Docket No. USCIS-2025-0271, through the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal: <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the website instructions for submitting comments. Comments must be submitted in English, or an English translation must be provided. Comments submitted in a manner other than via <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov,</E> including emails or letters sent to DHS or USCIS officials, will not be considered comments on the proposed rule and may not receive a response from DHS. Please note that DHS and USCIS cannot accept any comments that are hand-delivered or couriered. In addition, USCIS cannot accept comments contained on any form of digital media storage devices, such as CDs/DVDs and USB drives. USCIS is also not accepting mailed comments at this time. If you cannot submit your comment by using <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov,</E> please contact Regulatory Coordination Division, Office of Policy and Strategy, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security, by telephone at (240) 721-3000 for alternate instructions. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Business and Foreign Workers Division, Office of Policy and Strategy, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, DHS, 5900 Capital Gateway Drive, Camp Springs, MD 20746; telephone (240) 721-3000. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Public Participation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Executive Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Purpose of the Regulatory Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Legal Authority</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Summary of the Regulatory Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Background & Purpose</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Legal Authority</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Legal Framework for Employment Authorization and Verification</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Types of Employment Authorization: 8 CFR 274a.12(a), (b), and (c)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. The Application Process for Obtaining an Employment Authorization Document</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Renewal of Employment Authorization Documents</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">4. I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Automatic Extension of Employment Authorization and Documentation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Increasing the Automatic Extension Period From a Maximum of 180 Days to a Maximum of 540 Days</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Circumstances Resulting in the 2022 Temporary Final Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Circumstances Resulting in the 2024 Temporary Final Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Circumstances Resulting in the 2024 Final Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Discussion of This Interim Final Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Negative Impact of Prior Policies</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Impact of EAD Automatic Extensions on Public Safety and National Security</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Impact of the EAD Automatic Extension Final Rule on Employment Authorization Eligibility</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Administration Policies To Reduce EAD Filings Overall</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. IFR Impact on Aliens and Employers</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Reliance Interests</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">4. Alternatives Considered</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">5. Employment Authorization Verification</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Conclusion</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Description of Regulatory Changes: Adding New 8 CFR 274a.13(e) and Modifying the Heading of 8 CFR 274a.13(d)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Adding New 8 CFR 274a.13(e)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Modifying the Heading of 8 CFR 274a.13(d)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Severability</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Statutory and Regulatory Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Administrative Procedure Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Good Cause</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Foreign Affairs</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Executive Orders 12866 (Regulatory Planning and Review), 13563 (Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review), and 14192 (Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Affected Population</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Impacts of Ending the Practice of Providing EAD Automatic Extensions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Regulatory Flexibility Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 (Congressional Review Act)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Executive Order 13132 (Federalism)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Executive Order 12988 (Civil Justice Reform)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Family Assessment</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. Executive Order 13175</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. National Environmental Policy Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">K. Paperwork Reduction Act</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Abbreviations</HD> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">APA—Administrative Procedure Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CBP—U.S. Customs and Border Protection</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CFR—Code of Federal Regulations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CRA—Congressional Review Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">DHS—U.S. Department of Homeland Security</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">EAD—employment authorization document</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">E.O.—Executive Order</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Form I-765—Application for Employment Authorization</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FY—Fiscal Year</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">HSA—Homeland Security Act of 2002</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">ICE—U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">IFR—Interim final rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">IIRIRA—Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">INA—Immigration and Nationality Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">ISO—Immigration Service Officer</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NEPA—National Environmental Policy Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1"> OMB—Office of Management and Budget </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">PRA—Paperwork Reduction Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">SBREFA—Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Secretary—Secretary of Homeland Security</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">TFR—Temporary final rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">UMRA—Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C.—United States Code</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">USCIS—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services</FP> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Public Participation</HD> DHS invites all interested parties to participate in this rulemaking by submitting written data, views, comments and arguments on all aspects of this IFR. DHS also invites comments that relate to the economic, environmental, or federalism effects that might result from this IFR. Comments must be submitted in English, or an English translation must be provided. Comments that will provide the most assistance to USCIS in implementing these changes will reference a specific portion of the IFR, explain the reason for any recommended change, and include data, information, or authority that support such recommended change. Comments submitted in a manner other than the one listed above, including emails or letters sent to DHS or USCIS officials, will not be considered comments on the IFR and may not receive a response from DHS. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> If you submit a comment, you must include the agency name (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) and the DHS Docket No. USCIS-USCIS-2025-0271 for this rulemaking. Regardless of the method used for submitting comments or material, all submissions will be posted, without change, to the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov,</E> and will include any personal information you provide. Therefore, submitting this information makes it public. You may wish to consider limiting the amount of personal information that you provide in any voluntary public comment submission you make to DHS. DHS may withhold information provided in comments from public viewing that it determines may impact the privacy of an individual or is offensive. For additional information, please read the Privacy and Security Notice available at <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket and to read background documents or comments received, go to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov,</E> referencing DHS Docket No. USCIS-USCIS-2025-0271. You may also sign up for email alert ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 186k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━