UPDATED: We are happy to report that our client has been scheduled for his naturalization next Friday. Shortly after we filed the lawsuit seeking to compel USCIS to act on this three year old naturalization application, USCIS scheduled our client for fingerprinting. A week later, we went with our client to his naturalization interview. He has been approved for citizenship and we will be dismissing the case after only two months.
PRIOR STORY: Our firm recently filed another lawsuit against USCIS over unlawful immigration delays. We represent a man who has been a lawful permanent resident for over ten years. In 2008, he applied for citizenship and filed all of the necessary paperwork. He passed the naturalization examination and has been waiting three years for a decision on his case.
This man has made numerous InfoPass appointments, has called the USCIS 1-800 number on several occasions and has gone to the St. Louis immigration office to figure out what he could do to get his case moving. In our experience, these actions do little to compel action by USCIS.
We filed a lawsuit against USCIS director Alejandro Mayorkas, District Director Michael Jaromin and local office head Chester Moyer. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Missouri. A federal statute, 8 U.S.C. Section 1447(b) allows a lawful permanent resident to file such an action and to request that the federal judge either naturalize the resident or compel action on the part of USCIS to fulfill their statutory obligation to adjudicate such cases.