The 39-Country Hold Is Moving: Flag Affected I-485 and EAD Cases This Week

The deadline is the order date, not an approval date

Open the tracker and mark the date the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued the injunction in Red Eagle Law, L.C., et al. v. Joseph B. Edlow: August 24, 2026. The certified group includes pending asylum filings on Form I-589 and adjustment filings on Form I-485 connected to PM-602-0192 or PM-602-0194. USCIS said the court ordered it to process the affected applications through its ordinary process.

The certified class covers citizens or natives of the 39 countries named in Presidential Proclamations 10949 or 10998, as well as natives or citizens of the Palestinian Authority. The two adjudication holds were PM-602-0192, dated December 2, 2025, and PM-602-0194, dated January 1, 2026.

The August 24, 2026 order does not guarantee that a covered application will be approved. USCIS has not announced a timeline for processing the affected applications once the hold ended.

For a mobility team, the practical test is the filing: the form, the hold code, and the employee’s nationality or native status.

The checklist turns the order into a defensible case file

Start with the tracker, then the case file, then the employee. Use the minimum set of actions that keeps the file defensible while the case waits for ordinary processing. Each item is small enough to finish in a minute, and each one creates a record that the team saw the order and acted on it.

• Flag affected pending cases: confirm nationality or native status, then mark each covered pending I-485 or I-589 as “hold lifted, awaiting ordinary processing.”
• Reset the processing-time tracker to the order date, not to an approval date.
• Brief the employee on the status change and the approval limit.
• Keep approval separate from resumption: no offer letter, no travel, no status-dependent benefit until a decision issues.
• If the case is not in the certified class, leave the timeline unchanged.
• Do not promise a date.

The first four items protect the tracker and the employee conversation. The last two keep the team from overreaching.

The employee message stays narrow

Tell the employee the status is moving again, the evidence still matters, and the next milestone is a decision, not a promise. If the employee asks for a date, answer with the tracker’s current status.

Keep the approval question separate from the resumption question. A resumed case can still need more evidence, a response to a request, or a final decision. The tracker should show those steps without borrowing confidence from the order.

The same rule applies to downstream plans. A travel date, a start date, or a benefit that depends on status should wait for the decision. The employee should hear the same.

The file should show the check

Put the order date in the case notes, not only in a shared drive. The note should say which pending filings were reviewed, which ones were marked as covered, and which ones were left unchanged. The note should also say who reviewed the case and when. If the team cannot confirm the class, the file should say so.

The same note should capture the employee conversation. A short record of what was said, when it was said, and what the employee was told to expect is enough. The record should not promise a result. It should show that the team separated resumption from approval, and it should be easy for the next reviewer to find.

When the case moves again, the tracker should show the next step: a request for evidence, a response deadline, or a final decision.