02/12/2011 - USCIS Consolidates EAD and Parole Documents based on Pending Adjustments
USCIS has announced that it will begin granting Employment Authorization Documents ("EADs") and Advance Parole based on pending Adjustment of Status cases on the same document, once approved. The document will be the current EAD card, but will now contain an endorsement that the card now "Serves as I-512 Advance Parole."
Individuals filing I-485 Applications to Adjust Status to Permanent Residence are entitled to apply for interim Employment Authorization, and a travel document called an "Advance Parole" - in fact, travel without the Advance Parole serves to abandon the request to adjust status in the U.S. for most people (the exception being individuals on valid H-1B/H-4 or L-1/L-2 non-immigrant visas).
While any changes in the procedures to apply for Advance Parole are unclear at this point, presumably, the travel endorsement would only be placed on EAD cards where it has been requested, and not where an I-131 Application for travel Document has not been filed.
Sounds more efficient than the current policy of issuing separate documents, and may end up being faster. On the whole, a good thing.
The one potential problem: the Advance Parole does nothing except prevent abandonment of the Adjustment of Status should a person travel while the I-485 is pending. There has always been a problem with people (especially people handlng their cases themselves, without an attorney) not knowing this. They then travel and - since the have built up unlawful presence here before leaving - becoming subject to a three- or ten-year reentry bar.
This mistake may now be easier to make; it is foreseeable that the EAD card will come to be generally thought of as a "work AND travel document" (especially by those posting to the message boards on which these people rely).
Anyone applying for Adjustment of Status