Every now and then, people come to see us at the office, and they have a case that is completely messed up. These are usually cases that they have filed pro se, which means they filed them without an attorney, and their case has gotten a bit more complicated, and we have to start considering the option of withdrawing a case. En Español.
Now, you never really want to withdraw a case because obviously you've paid your filing fees, and when you withdraw the case, you do lose your filing fees. You also might have a lot of time invested in the processing of your case, and you might've done a lot of work to get it as far as you did, but in certain circumstances, it is a really good idea to go ahead and withdraw the case.
What are some examples of this? Well, one time somebody came to see us, and after he had filed his citizenship application, he had gotten arrested, and his criminal charges were pending. It looked like we were not going to be able to get the criminal case disposed of before the citizenship interview, so we went ahead and withdrew the case.
We had another situation where a young couple came to see us, and they had gotten their case so complicated, and there were so many bad facts in the case that we decided to withdraw that case as well, and the clients agreed.
What happened in that situation is that the couple had been fighting off and on over time, and there was a family member who was not happy about the marriage. That family member had gone down to immigration and reported them as having these marital problems, and we were worried that if we went ahead with the interview with everything just as it was, it'd really put us in a bad light, and the case would probably be denied because there are things worse than a denial because you can be caught with a fraud or a misrepresentation allegation, and that's even worse than just having your case denied.
It's relatively easy to withdraw a case. In most situations, USCIS is glad to close the file and move on to the next case. All you have to do is send a letter with your case numbers on there and reference the fact that you want to withdraw the case. They're generally pretty willing to do that. They'll do it all the way up until the interview. What you don't want to do is make them do all this extra work and then try to withdraw it.
Now, USCIS is not required to allow you to withdraw the case. We have had a few situations where we tried to withdraw a case, and immigration service did not allow us to do that, so it's a good idea if you're thinking about withdrawing the case or if you think that there's something wrong with your case that you want to make sure that you go talk to a competent immigration attorney. You want to see a good immigration lawyer and make sure that everything gets squared away properly and that you're getting good advice as to whether or not you want to withdraw the case.
It's not something you're going to do in every case, but it is an option, and sometimes discretion is the better part of valor. That's an old expression, and what it means is that sometimes you want to be able to live and fight another day. You want to have another chance, and so in a lot of these cases that we've withdrawn, we've re-prepared them, we've gone over the facts and done things a little bit differently than the people did without an attorney, and we've been able to get those cases approved.
If you have any questions about your case or if you're wondering, "Is there something wrong about my case that would make me want to withdraw it," feel free to give us a call.
The other thing that this points out is the fact that you really want to have a good representation from the beginning because a lot of these mistakes were things that were done by the couple because they didn't have an attorney, so this whole problem of having to potentially withdraw a case highlights the fact that it's really important to have good immigration counsel right from the beginning.
If you have any questions, like I said, give us a call, 314-961-8200, or you can email us at [email protected].
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Thanks a lot. Have a great day.
