Filing F-1 OPT EAD Application with USCIS: Every day there are thousands of applicants who are filing some type of immigration form to USCIS for the sake of claiming some type of US immigration benefit.
The challenge some of these applicants might have, especially when you’re a first time applicant is not known and what type of response that you’re going to get from USCIS, after submitting your immigration case.
In this article we will learn the different types of responses that you can expect from USCIS when tracking the status of your immigration case.
Filing F-1 OPT EAD Application with USCIS
Your immigration journey with USCIS begins at the moment you mail your application to USCIS. It’s usually recommend that when you mail your application to USCIS, you should request tracking information.
The reason you want to do this might be quite obvious because you want to monitor the status of the application. But it’s also very important to do this because in certain circumstances you might want your application to get to USCIS before a particular deadline.
A common scenario here tends to be the case of F1 students in the U.S who are applying for optional practical training with USCIS. Now, once you confirm the delivery of your immigration application to USCIS, it’s best that you save this confirmation of delivery in your records.
The reason why this is important is that just in case USCIS says that they did not receive the application, you can have an evidence to show that your application was submitted to USCIS.
In most cases, when you receive a confirmation of delivery from your mailing service provider, saying that your meal was received by USCIS, it’s more than likely that USCIS would have actually received the application.
It is quite rare to have circumstances where USCIS could lose your application after your mailing service provider has provided a confirmation of delivery of your application.
So it is safe to say that once you’ve received the confirmation of delivery from your million service provider, your waiting game with USCIS officially begins.
Form I-797 receipt notice
The very first response you’re likely to get from USA is a confirmation letter stating that your application for a particular immigration benefit was received. Now, this confirmation letter from USCIS is formally called a Form I-797 receipt notice, and it’s usually delivered by USPS regular mail.
When you get this receipt notice, the most important section of this notice is a receipt number that you can find on the top left corner of the form.
You are going to be using this receipt number moving forward to track the status of your immigration application with USCIS on the USCIS case status online, too.
On this receipt notice, you’re also going to find two important dates:
- The first date is the notice date, which is essentially the day USCIS generated this letter to be mailed to you, and the second date is the received date, which is the day USCIS confirmed the receipt of your application.
Under normal circumstances, where USCIS might have a fairly typical processing time, it might take about four weeks for you to receive this receipt notice.
However, when USCIS has a severe backlog, it might take anywhere between six to twelve weeks to receive your receipt notice.
As a first time filer, your mileage might vary. For example, you might have someone who submitted the exact same immigration petition to USCIS that you’re submitting, and it takes them about four weeks to get a receipt notice while you have to wait longer than eight weeks to get your receipt notice.
Once you’ve got your receipt notice and you’ve found your receipt number, you can now start tracking the status of your immigration case using the USCIS website.
If you want to learn how to do that, checkout the post below that walks you through four best ways of tracking the status of your immigration case with USCIS.
Different types of USCIS immigration case updates you can expect after filing your F-1 OPT EAD application
Let’s go over the different types of case updates you might get when tracking the status of your immigration case with USCIS.
Once you’ve got your receipt number, if you enter this number into the USCIS case status quo, you’re going to see a case update that says “case was received.”
This is usually the first case updates on your immigration case. Now, one of the hang ups of the USCIS case status, too, that frustrates a lot of applicants is that the tool does not give you specific details on your immigration case, so it’s quite common to have a case update that says “your case was received” for several weeks until your immigration case is either approved or your immigration case is rejected or denied.
So if you keep checking the status of your immigration case on this tool, don’t be surprised to keep on seeing the update, “Case was received” for several weeks up until your application is approved or rejected.
Another case update you might get in this time period is the case update that says that your “case was transferred and the new office has jurisdiction.”
If you happen to get this case update, it simply means that USCIS has moved the application to another USCIS office simply because of a processing time issue. If this is the case, USCIS is also going to send you a letter in the mail explaining what new location your immigration application has been sent to and what you can expect to do if you have any further questions.
So from this point on, you’re only going to get the case update on the USCIS website if your application is either approved, rejected, denied, or if you receive a notice explaining that you need to provide further documents for your immigration application to be processed.
Using the example of someone who’s filed a Form I-765 for the Employment Authorization documents with USCIS. So if you file your form I-765 and you’ve checked your case status and it says that your case was received, the next steps you might get will be either if your case is rejected, denied, or approved.
Approved I-765
Let’s take the straightforward path that your application for your I-765 was approved. Well, what you can expect when you check your case status is that it’s obviously going to display that your case was approved, and within a few days you’re going to see another case update saying that a new card is being produced.
Once your case has been approved, you’re going to expect to receive another form I-797. Well, this time it’s going to be an approval notice explaining that your application for your employment authorization document (EAD) card was approved.
Unless it’s otherwise stated, this approval notice does not confer any immigration benefit to you.
So you would have to wait until you’ve received your employment authorization document card before you could begin working.
Card was delivered to me by the post office
Within a few days of USCIS producing your EAD card, you’re going to see a case update on the USCIS website saying that the card was mailed to you. And once this EAD card has been delivered to you, the case update is going to change to “the card was delivered to me by the post office.”
USCIS usually sends out EAD cards by USPS regular mail, so you should check your mailbox for your EAD card and also make sure to inspect this card closely, making sure that your biographical information, such as the spelling of your name and your date of birth, is correct on the card.
In the unfortunate circumstance that your application doesn’t go as smoothly from case was received to case was approved.
Some other types of case updates you might expect on the USCIS website or case updates like a request for additional evidence was mailed. Now, this is usually called an RFE
Once you respond to the request for evidence and USCIS receives a response, your case updates is going to change to response to USCIS request for evidence was received, and this is quite similar to the initial case updates that your case was received in the sense that you might have to wait for several weeks to receive another response from USCIS, which could be that your case was approved, rejected, or further evidence is needed.
Another case update you might get is an update that says that a notice explaining USCIS actions was mailed. Just like the case of the RFE, if you receive a case update like this, USCIS is going to send you a letter in the mail explaining the problems with your application, and will tell you what documents you need to provide so that your application will be processed.
A possible case update you could see on the USCIS website is the case update saying that your application was rejected.
This could be caused for a multitude of reasons. Sometimes it could be that you provided an application on a form that already expired, or sometimes it could be that you did not pay the right application fee.
For whatever the reason is in your rejection, USCIS is going to be providing a letter explaining the reasons why your application was rejected.