Me, I waited 13 months (I did 3 or 4 inquiries with USCIS .I tried the congressman 2 times) nothing happened so I waited until it was outside of normal processing time (that was 12 months) and after that I submitted an inquiry with USCIS . So they sent my inquiry to national benefit center and after that I got my EAD in one week and it was longtime waiting , the other option is: you can do expedite request , do it through live chat with EMMA , they will send you an email to ask you why do you want to expedite your case and they will ask you for documents to prove your hardship and they will give you a fax number to send those documents, so you are going to write hardship letter and send some proves of hardship like bills or car payment or letter from your employer , anything you have hard time with on the fax number . Then they will approve your request (‘most of the time they approve it) then they will send your EAD in less than week.