Simple as that sounds, there is no clear answer... To our knowledge -- and you should verify this with your OWN attorney, who may be more knowledgeable on this issue -- there are three ways a pending adjustment of status can end:

1. Final approval of the permanent residency
2. Denial
3. Withdrawal of the application

Consider Examples A and B. In A, the job falls through and the employer immediately advises INS to revoke the pending I-140 petition (and/or advises DOL to revoke the approved Labor Cert.) In such case, it appears that the revocation of the underlying petition would invalidate entire adjustment process as follows...

Since the EAD depends on the adjustment and the adjustment depends on the unrevoked LC/Employer petition, revoking the petition means the adjustment and EAD both fail.

Clear enough. But what happens in Example B, where the employer terminates the alien but does not act to revoke the underlying petition and approval? (In our experience, most acts to revoke are undertaken when the employee did something bad to the company; to our knowledge, FAILURE to advise the government of the terminated job offer is not a punishable offense for the employer at the "adjustee" stage...after all, proof of the offer WILL be required at the time of the interview.

SO, the specific questions:

Can you keep working until the final date of the valid EAD OR adjustment interview, whichever comes first, in the scenario of Example B? We don't know the answer to this but here is what we do know:

• Any employer who relies on the EAD you present cannot be prosecuted by DOL or INS since it is, at face value, valid.
• Unless revoked by the INS, an EAD remains valid until its expiration.

So, there you are, remembering this little FAQ, staring eye to eye at the INS officer and explaining that you didn't TECHNICALLY work illegally after the job failed since the EAD was still valid. As far as we know, the officer should simply deny the adjustment and, having bought yourself a few more months of earning dollars, you go home OR, if your H is still valid, you change H employers. BUT HE CAN ALSO:

• Decide that your continuing use of the EAD was improper since the underlying job had failed.

Accordingly, the not so simple answer to this apparently innocuous little question is...

It is safer to assume that if the underlying job offer upon which the adjustment of status is based fails, the INS MAY interpret continued employment on the corresponding EAD to be improper...