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According to DHS, this temporary extension of employment authorization to up to 540 days applies to applicants who submitted Form I-765, Application for Employment Authorization renewal applications on or after Oct. 27, 2023, and whose applications are still pending as of April 8, 2024. It also covers eligible applicants who submitted a Form I-765 renewal application on or after April 8, 2024, but no later than Sept 30, 2025. Following this temporary final rule, the automatic extension period for qualifying EADs will revert to up to 180 days for applicants who submit Form I-765 renewal applications after Sept. 30, 2025.

To enable the auto extension feature in Smart Onboarding/Smart I-9 applications, the following two setup options are required:

• Enable EAD Auto Extension Auto Create - Select this checkbox to enable a process that runs on weekdays (Monday to Friday) on a recurring basis. This process identifies transactions eligible for EAD auto extension and generates an additional I-9 task, extending the EAD expiration date by up to 540 days in Section 2.
• Summary Digest Notification Pool - Contains a list of contacts for sending email notification when auto creation of EAD extension process is triggered. 
  
  

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The email containing the total number of I-9s with generated additional I-9 tasks will be sent to the contacts listed in the notification pool.

What transactions are eligible for the EAD auto extension auto create process?

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1) In Section 2, within the List A or List C document sections, the Document Title must be "Employment Authorization Document (EAD)," and the category code entered must correspond to the eligibility category code/class requested for the extension.

When the Document Title is Employment Auth Document (Form I-766), an additional field will be populated under this list to capture the eligibility category code. Selecting this field is optional.

For the transaction to be eligible for EAD auto extension, having a value in eligibility Category Code/Class Requested is required and the value must be one of the category codes - A03, A05, A07, A08, A10, A12, A17, A18, C08, C09, C10, C16, C19, C20, C22, C24, C26, C31.  . 

Note: If Section 2 is completed without selecting a value in the category code, the transaction will not be not eligible for the EAD auto extension.

2) The EAD expiration date in Section 2 must be current or set to expire within one or two days of the current date (current date +1 or current date +2) and meet one of the following criteria:

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In this example, the EAD expiration date in Section 2 is equal to the work authorization expiration date in Section 1. Therefore, the transaction gets picked up for the EAD auto extension when the auto create process runs.

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In this example, you can see the transaction has no Supplement B reverification data in its I-9 Master.

4) The I-9 should be active and must not have the termination date set to the current date, if one exists.

In this example, the I-9 is active and does not have a termination date set. To check if the I-9 has a termination date, navigate to the "Set/View Termination Date" page through "Info and Actions" in the I-9 Console.

If a termination date exists, it will be displayed on this page as well as in the I-9 Master. Since the termination date is not set for the selected I-9 ID, it will not appear on this page or in the I-9 Master.

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For navigating to the I-9 Master, click the I-9 ID link for the corresponding I-9 in the I-9 Console and select the "I-9 Master" option.

How to complete Section 2 for EAD auto extended transactions?

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To process these transactions, search for the Invitation ID or name in the My Tasks Console or within the "My Tasks" category of Keyword Search. Select the "Complete I-9" link on the specific row. If the row does not appear in the My Tasks Console, it means the transaction has not been picked up by the auto create process.

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A sample page of the completed activity is shown below.

In Section 2, the document expiration date is updated by adding 540 days to its previous expiration date. Additionally, an additional note stating "EAD EXT: Extended by 540 days" will be included in the Additional Information field. Review the extended EAD expiration date. In the Additional Information, enter if any note/comment has to be added. 

If an alternative procedure is used for remote verification of documents, indicate this by selecting the "Check here if you used an alternative procedure authorized by DHS to examine documents" checkbox. 

Note: This alternative process is allowed only when the Legal Entity (Company/Business Unit) responsible for the employee's hiring is registered for E-Verify, which means the Company or Business Unit has been configured in the DHS Client Setup. If the legal Entity (Company/Business Unit) is not enrolled in E-Verify, this checkbox will appear disabled.

When this checkbox is selected, it is required to attach supporting documents. 

If the attachment is not provided, the following error message will be displayed on the page. 

Note: If Section 2 is assigned to a remote user, and if the checkbox indicating "Check here if you used an alternative procedure authorized by DHS to examine documents" is checked by the remote user in Section 2, they are required to upload the supporting documents when completing the activity. In this case, the I-9 Specialist need not add the attachments while completing the Section 2 review. 

Note: Even if the checkbox for "Check here if you used an alternative procedure authorized by DHS to examine documents" is not selected, you may still be prompted to upload attachments, especially if they are configured as mandatory in I-9 activities. If prompted, please upload the required attachments.

After the details are reviewed and updated, select "I Agree" checkbox and electronically sign. 

Upon completion, the updated document expiration date will be reflected as the I-9 work authorization end date in the additional notes of the completed Section 2 activity as well as in the I-9 Master.

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