Can I withdraw an immigration case after it's on file? Hi, I'm Jim Hacking, immigration lawyer practicing law throughout the United States out of our office here in St. Louis, Missouri.
Today's video comes from a question by one of our subscribers to our YouTube channel. His name is Albert and Albert wants to know, "Can I withdraw a case after it's been filed with the Immigration Service and what happens to that case and can I refile later?" Albert, great question. So I'm a big believer in withdrawing faulty cases.
If we have a case that we come across that someone else has filed and we think that it has a fundamental defect, if we think there's something that means this case will not and cannot and shall not ever be approved, we will withdraw it and the reason we withdraw it is we don't want to get a denial on the person's immigration record.
So it's much better to withdraw a case than to have a case denied. Another thing to keep in mind when it comes to withdrawing cases is that if you believe that there's something wrong with your case and if your case is being delayed, then dismissing it or withdrawing it and refiling it might be the best way to go.
So you have a chance to avoid a denial and you're going to cut off that time of waiting, waiting, and waiting. In other words, there's no reason to wait for them to deny a case that we know can't be approved and so it's better to dismiss it and get a new case on file right away. In fact, what you can do is get the new case ready to go, file the withdrawal and then be ready to file the new case right away so there's not an overlap. So we just did this recently.
A fellow hired us to sue USCAS because his green card case had been taking so long. We received a notice of intent to deny the case because it turned out that the divorce decree that the foreign national who had hired us had gotten from his home country was not an accurate and actual divorce decree and so that case could not be approved because if he was still married back home in Nigeria, then he was not going to be able to adjust here in the United States based on a second marriage because that marriage was invalid because he was still legally married back home.
So we withdrew the case instead of dragging it out and instead of letting him get a denial on his case. Now he's working to get that divorce finalized and then we'll refile the new case. But in the meantime it's going to be better to withdraw a case. Now the question was also asked, well, if you deny it, can you reapply in the future? Well, the answer to that question is yes. Do I think they hold it against you? No, I don't think so.
I think they might look and see what the problem was with the earlier case. But one of the nice things about withdrawal I think is that sometimes they just stop thinking about it and that's not so bad because sometimes not only is your case flawed, but it might be one that could subject you to being put into removal and we have seen situations where we have withdrawn a case and a notice to appear has not come in the mail.
So sometimes getting the case closed isn't the worst thing in the world. So yes, absolutely, the answer to the question, yes, you can and probably should withdraw some cases. It sort of a hard analysis to figure that out.
So if you need help, give us a call. (314) 961-8200. You can email us at [email protected]. Be sure to join us in our Facebook group, which is called Immigrant Home and if you like this video, we ask that you share it out on social so that we can spread the word and everyone can learn new immigration news as it's happening. Thanks a lot. Have a great day.
