u/TIN_MANNN

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Finally, back! 6 months total, 3 months on unpaid card in hand, and returning to work tomorrow!

​After what felt like an endless wait, my card is finally here! The entire renewal process took 6 full months, and unfortunately, 3 of those were spent on unpaid leave waiting for processing.

​I went in today to update my I-9 with my employer. My original plan was to take the rest of the week to reset and start fresh on Monday, but management asked if I could jump back in tomorrow to cover for a few coworkers out on vacation. Honestly, given that they patiently held my job for almost three months, helping out early is the absolute least I can do.

​To everyone still waiting in the backlog, hang in there.

I will also start to look for a weekend part time, since those 3 months without working depleted my savings & i owe 4k to the IRS from last year that I could not afford to pay since I was out of work!

best of luck to everyone still waiting!

Tracking says card delivered to lawyer's office on Aug 5th, but they only have approval notice. Is this normal?

Hey everyone, looking for some advice or similar experiences.My USCIS case status updated to "Card Was Delivered To Me By The Post Office" and gave me a USPS tracking number. According to the USPS website, the package was officially marked as delivered to my lawyer's office on August 5th.I went to my lawyer's office, and they told me they only received my physical paper approval notice, not the actual card. I went back again today to double-check, and they still claim they don't have the card.Since the tracking number is specifically for the secure card package and not the standard mail approval notice, I'm starting to worry.Has anyone had USPS mark a card as delivered, but it actually showed up a few days later?Is it common for law firms to misplace or take a long time to log physical cards compared to paper notices?At what point should I ask my lawyer to file a non-delivery e-request with USCIS?Appreciate any insights!

I've been thinking a lot about the importance of staying up to date with everything going on with DACA. Like a lot of us, I got comfortable. I renewed every time and never really paid much attention to what was happening with the program or processing trends.

I finally got approved for both my DACA and work permit on 7/29, but I ended up being on a leave of absence from my job for almost 3 months because of the delay. Looking back, I feel like if I had stayed more informed, I probably could have avoided that gap.

It still surprises me when I see people asking when they should renew. Even though newer renewals are moving faster now than many of the cases that got stuck between November and April, staying up to date makes the decision easy: renew as early as you can. Even if you lose a couple of months on your current EAD, that's a much better outcome than losing your ability to work for weeks or months.

To keep this short, I'll probably stop posting as much here and mostly just lurk to keep up with trends so I never end up in this situation again.

I also want to say thank you to this community. You all gave me hope during one of the most stressful times I've been through. Even though this Reddit account is fairly new, I used to be active on a different account, so I've been part of this community for a long time.

Sending positive vibes to everyone who's still waiting. I hope you all get your approvals soon. 🍀🍀🍀🍀

About two weeks ago, I chatted with a USCIS live agent through Emma. I was always polite and respectful because I know the agents aren't the ones making the decisions.

After talking for a bit, the agent asked if I had submitted an outside normal processing time request. I explained that DACA applicants can't submit an e-Request online because the website instructs us to call the USCIS hotline instead.

She then asked if I wanted her to submit one on my behalf. Of course, I said yes. Within a few minutes, I received an email with an e-Request ID confirming that an outside normal processing time request had been submitted for my DACA case.

I can't say for sure if that made the difference, but I was approved exactly two weeks later 7.29.26 after getting API for both cases on 7.28.26.

One thing I want to mention in case it helps someone else: if you ask USCIS to submit an outside normal processing time request for your DACA renewal, make sure you're providing your I-821D receipt number, not your I-765 receipt number. The processing times for a standalone I-765 can be much longer (around 13.5 months), and I think some people accidentally use the wrong receipt number when talking to USCIS. if you have tried this before & you recently passed 150 days I would say call or chat with an agent & asked to to put another inquiry incase all the work load has been completed by now & just sitting in a queue!

I hope this helps someone who's still waiting. Wishing everyone still in the process a fast approval—you've got this! 🙏

Hey everyone, I wanted to share my timeline and get some opinions from people who have been through this.

DACA Renewal Date: 02/26/2026

Biometrics: 03/26/2026

Previous EAD Expiration: 04/30/2026

I’ve been on LOA since May and I’m coming up on almost 3 months of unpaid leave. Like a lot of people waiting on renewals, this has been extremely stressful. Watching my savings disappear every month while paying around $2,500+ just to stay afloat has been rough.

My original plan was to give USCIS until August. If I didn’t hear anything by then, I was going to start looking for any type of work I could find, even cash jobs, just to survive. I was also planning on submitting a letter of intent this week letting USCIS know I was considering legal action because of the delay.

But today I finally got API movement on both of my cases:

I-821D: 2026-07-28 16:42:16.659

I-765: 2026-07-28 16:42:16.734

Both updates happened at the exact same time (11:42 AM), only seconds apart.

For those who have experience with this — does this usually mean something is about to happen? Approval, a decision, or just another internal update?

My questions:

- Should I still move forward with the letter of intent?

- Should I continue looking for work just in case?

- Has anyone had both I-821D and I-765 get API movement like this and receive an approval shortly after?

Any opinions or personal experiences are appreciated. Hopefully this is finally the light at the end of the tunnel.