There are a ton of EAD uses, but the ones that the administration is going to care about would be: C08, C10, C11, C14, C18, C19, and C33. They could exempt some of the codes, but from an administrative standpoint it’s easier just to do a blanket rule.
The administration has made it fairly clear it doesn’t see much difference between people here in what’d I’d call the grey area statuses — ones where someone asks for a temporary benefit that is not a change in overall immigration status but prevents unlawful presence from accruing — and those here out of status. Most of the people that would fall into the categories I mentioned above would fall into what they broadly (and incorrectly) paint as “illegal immigrants.”
And I think there’s pretty strong overall evidence they want people to leave on their own: the president has said on multiple occasions that people should “self-deport” so they can have a chance at coming back. You also have a lot of that type of rhetoric coming out of the surrogates. They’re not going to come out and say “we’re making this harder in hopes people leave and don’t continue seeking benefits within the U.S.” that’d get them sued.
From the State standpoint, they’ve also been providing more guidance to embassies and consulates on vetting, while speeding up embassy and consulate IV scheduling times — doesn’t mean an approval, but wait times to go from NVC to a consulate are down from 6 months ago.
The clear trend in everything is to push the responsibility for vetting immigrants to State, who are widely viewed as more competent than USCIS by pretty much everyone, so that the vetting can be done overseas rather than while the person is in the US.
The approach of doing vetting outside the US only works if the people leave. And of course they don’t like immigrants, but that also doesn’t mean they don’t have a strategy on this or that they’re not trying to build systems that furthers their goals. Stephen Miller is actively involved in regular calls with the State Department officials that lead visa processing in DC. Do we really think the man doesn’t have a coordinated approach to his plans between DHS and State?