We recently filed a new lawsuit against the federal government for delays in the processing of our client's family based visa applications. Our client is a United States citizen of Pakistani descent. He filed a spouse visa two years ago and a family based visa for his father more than three years ago. The case is being handled out of the St. Louis field office of USCIS.
Our client has done everything humanly possible to try and get USCIS to make a decision on the cases. He has made numerous InfoPass appointments at the USCIS office. He has asked for congressional help and Senator McCaskill's office attempted to intervene. He has written letters. He has called the USCIS 1-800 number. Not only has USCIS ignored him, they basically ignored Senator McCaskill's office as well.
Our firm has heard similar complaints over the years. USCIS has been known to delay naturalization cases for years, even though the law requires them to decide a case when 120 days have passed since the naturalization interview. The Administrative Procedures Act requires USCIS to decide all of its cases in a "reasonable" time. Our client believes, and we agree, that three years (on his dad's case) and two years (on his wife's case) is unreasonable. We filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri (St. Louis) to compel governmental action.
We have learned that the only effective way to get USCIS's attention so that they will take action on a case is to sue them. In fact, one of our prior clients was actually told that by an immigration officer on the 1-800 number. We have helped over 50 people obtain favorable decisions in long-delayed citizenship cases and have helped 10 people obtain their green cards faster than if they had waited to sue.
The government's response is due in the next few weeks. We will update the website with additional developments.
If you have experienced long, unreasonable delays at USCIS, please give us a call at 314-961-8200 or visit our contact page to learn how the immigration attorneys at Hacking Immigration Law, LLC might be able to help.
