What happens if USCIS has lost my file? Hi, I'm Jim Hacking, immigration lawyer practicing law throughout the United States out of our office here in St. Louis, Missouri. We've been getting some questions from folks on our Ask Me Anything webinar about what happens if I show up at my interview and they say, "Oh, sorry, Mr. Smith. We're not going to be able to handle your interview because your file hasn't made it from the service center"? So here's the deal, my friends. I don't believe any of the BS the USCIS says about why your case has been delayed. So they make stuff up all the time. You can't believe them. You don't need to get worked up about it. You either have your interview or you don't. Everything else is just BS. Everything else is just spinned by them. They might say, "Oh, your case is still on background check," or, "Oh, we don't have your file." That's all crap.
The question is, have you had your interview or not? If you haven't had your interview, your case is delayed. If you have had your interview, your case is not delayed. That's it. Their rationalizations, their explanations, their excuses, it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is, did I have my interview, and what can I do to get my interview? I don't believe them when they say the file is missing. I don't believe them when they say that the file has not made it from the service center. I don't believe it when they say, "Your case is still on background check." And I want to tell you that if you show up at your interview and they say, "Your file's missing," that is probably a CARRP case. That's probably a case that's going to be delayed. That's probably a case you're going to need to sue over.
But at the end of the day, you really need to press them. And this just happened about six months ago to me to a client who had just traveled back home to Pakistan while her naturalization case was pending. And they told us that the file hadn't made it. So that's total crap. The file's sitting right there on their desk, and it just means that there's something that they're concerned about. So that's a red flag. If you show up at your interview or if it gets de-scheduled the day before or two days before, that means there's something in your file that freaked them out. That's what it really means, and you need to be concerned about that. You probably need to give us a call.
And if you are having a delay like this, give us a call at 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 you to please share it out on social so that we can spread the word. And make sure that you subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you get updates whenever we make videos just like this one. Thanks a lot. Have a great day.
