EAD - freaking out!

[americangirl 0]

Hi everyone, I'm new here. My husband and I (I'm a citizen, he's not, and we both live in the U.S.) were recently married, and I mailed the AOS and EAD forms in yesterday! It was an amazing feeling...I almost wanted to take a photo of the postal worker taking my package away.

I was feeling great, that is, until I started trying to figure out when we might hear about the EAD. He has a job (he's on F-1 OPT), but his current EAD runs out May 31. Our area (San Francisco) isn't exactly, er, cheap, and based on our calculations, if it takes more than four months to hear about the EAD, we're going to be in a bad place. But now I'm reading that it takes a month just to get the right person looking at the forms, and can take four or five months after that to get the card! He can't not get paid for six months. And to make matters worse, I also read that EAD applications received as part of an AOS package take LONGER than others.

I know we can get an interim EAD if we don't hear in three months, but when does that three months begin? When the application arrives at USCIS, or when someone actually starts processing it, or what?

I was really hopeful based on his last EAD - he had it in his hands after about six weeks. I'm so disappointed right now. Should I have e-Filed? I wanted to send it all in at once since he's a c9, but...arghh!

I'm sorry, I know this is probably a very basic question and it's been answered a million times, but I'm so new to this process and am feeling rather helpless! (A few months ago I thought all you had to do was fill out an I-130 and be done with it - ah, the innocence!)

Edited May 4, 2006 by americangirl

[Chris W 0]

You can apply for an interim EAD 91 days after USCIS notify you of it's receipt (called NOA for short). That's probably going to be your only option...

All reports I've seen about EAD times related to AOS statuses or applications appear anecdotal at best, I had someone from the MSC tell me that the processing speeds are independent of each other.