Rather than renewing the work permits of foreign nationals each year, the federal immigration service plans to increase the time period the permits cover.

August 06, 2004

One of the federal immigration service's most basic documents, the work permit, is about to get a major overhaul.

Federal immigration officials in Washington said this week that perhaps as early as October they will make the work permit, which currently must be renewed annually, a document that will last longer than 12 months.

The change, officials said, would almost certainly cut back on some of the backlogs plaguing the immigration service because it would prevent permit holders from crowding processing centers and local immigration offices when their documents expire.

''It's good for the customer and it's good for us,'' said John Shewairy, Florida district chief of staff for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Chris Bentley, a spokesman for the service in Washington, said his agency is working out logistical details. Once they are ready, he said, the so-called Employment Authorization Document will be extended from one year to longer periods.

He said the immigration service took the first step in extending the document when the agency published its plan in the Federal Register last week.

In many cases, work permits are issued to foreign nationals who apply for permanent residence but have not yet received their green card. Once the green card arrives, that's all the immigrant needs to work legally.

Shewairy said processing times for green cards are currently running at between 12 and 18 months, and occasionally longer.

More than 36,000 people seeking green cards this fiscal year had applied for work permits in Florida as of May 31, Shewairy said.

Nationwide, more than 1 million immigrants who received residence in fiscal year 2002 also were issued work permits while awaiting approval of their green-card application, according to federal immigration statistics.

Shewairy said that typically the people who apply for work permits are also people who apply for green cards or who are paroled into the United States.

The processing time for an EAD runs at between two and three months. Local immigration offices will issue work permits if regional document-processing centers take longer than 90 days to issue the document.

Source - http://www.miami.com/