Case Types
Work Permit (EAD) Delays
Point to act: Act when the card expires — or renewals pass posted times
Your I-765 renewal has outrun its posted time — and the card you need to work is expiring or already gone.
How Soon Can a Mandamus Case Be Filed
When does a wait turn into a serious delay?
Benchmarks courts use, not rules — the review reads your actual file.
4 months
- Citizenship (after the interview)
6 months
- 221(g) consular
- Work permit (EAD)
1 year
- Marriage green card
- Employment green card
- Citizenship (N-400)
- EB-5 investor
5 years
- Asylum
When a work permit stalls
Most work-permit delays are renewals: the I-765 was filed on time, the posted processing time came and went, and the card in your wallet is about to expire or already has. Before anything else, check whether an automatic extension applies to your category — for many renewals filed before the card expires, it does, and that changes what your employer can accept and how urgent a lawsuit is. If it does not apply, or the extension itself has run out, every week without a decision is a week you cannot lawfully work.
How a mandamus lawsuit helps
A mandamus lawsuit asks a federal judge to make USCIS decide the application it has left pending. Work-permit cases make unusually clear complaints: the harm is concrete and documentable — lost wages, a job on hold, a license that lapsed — which is exactly what a court weighs when it asks whether a delay is unreasonable. Because the underlying application is usually simple, the agency rarely has much to defend. We also look at the case the permit depends on; if that application is the real problem, you will hear that first.
Signs this is your case
- Your I-765 renewal is outside posted processing times and inquiries come back templated.
- Your card has expired and no automatic extension applies, or the extension has run out.
- Your employer has suspended you or set a date by which they need proof of authorization.
- An initial work permit tied to a pending case has been sitting far longer than the case itself should take.
Run the 60-second pre-assessment or read how to tell a stuck case from a broken one.
If USCIS answers a lawsuit with a Request for Evidence, here is what happens next.
Where does your wait sit for this case type?
Pick the stage, how long it has been, and where you live; see which of the four readings it points to — then send it to the attorney.
Find out which answer is yours.
File, fix first, or wait — one free review tells you which, what it would cost, and what happens next.