United States Citizenship and Immigration Services is publishing a temporary final rule in the Federal Register to automatically extend the validity of Employment Authorization Documents from 180 to 540 days. That means eligible immigrants whose EADs have expired since Oct. 27 will remain eligible to work for at least another 360 days, while their EAD renewals are processed. The two largest groups benefited by the change will be asylum-seekers and foreign nationals who are in the process of changing their status to permanent residency. In all, up to 800,000 immigrants were at risk of losing their work permits without the new rule, according to a USCIS spokesperson.