A caller on the Immigration Answer Show had filed his work permit renewal in March 2025, was born in one of the “39 countries,” and heard nothing back. He wanted to know whether he had to let his current EAD lapse, and prove financial hardship, before he could join a lawsuit. Jim Hacking said the harm was already there.
mic What the Attorney Says
“The word is called standing. You have standing to be in the lawsuit because I believe you’re being harmed by them applying illegal rules to your case.”
The legal hook is that a pending applicant subjected to a rule the Immigration and Nationality Act does not authorize is being injured now, not only when the card finally expires. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, a person “adversely affected or aggrieved” by agency action can challenge it in court under 5 U.S.C. § 702, and courts set aside action that is arbitrary, capricious, or not in accordance with law under 5 U.S.C. § 706. You do not have to wait to be maximally harmed to say you are harmed.
Hacking’s point on the “hardship” question was that a well-drafted statement about what happens if the work card never comes clears the bar for the emergency relief side of a case.
mic What the Attorney Says
“I think most judges are going to deem that what’s called irreparable harm for purposes of standing to be in the lawsuit.”
Lost income, an interrupted career, and the ripple effects of losing work authorization are the kind of concrete, non-speculative injury judges look for. The caller’s instinct was to wait until the 540-day auto-extension runs out and then sue. That gets it backwards. Filing while the case is pending is what lets a court step in before the damage is done, the same logic behind the wave of EAD delay lawsuits working through the courts.
Timing here proved the point. Two days after this broadcast, on June 5, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island vacated the 39-country pause in Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island v. USCIS. The decision came because plaintiffs who had not waited were already in front of a judge. For anyone still stuck, the aftermath of that ruling is where the fight over actually restarting these cases now sits.