Legal action against USCIS - possible in this country?

[auric76 2]

I'm an early August filer

Called today to hear that they processing JUL 18 cases

The same answer I've been getting from them for more then 4 months, since December 2012

And they cannot open "service request" because its "within normal processing time"

Imagine the situation:

3 years from now,.. they still processing.. JUL 18, which is quite the possibility, considering number of Dream_Act/IllegalChildren applications they giving the priority in the comming months/years

would it be possible to start a legal action against them? When? After 1 year of waiting? 3 years? 5 years?

Any lawyers out there? Just curious

Hi everyone that is still waiting....only one suggestion that can help contact your STATE SENATOR and ask for his/her help on your case....It will work because that's what we did last year and because of all the illegal immigrant our files are being stacked and the one who follow all the legal procedure are being ignored.....GUYS CONTACT YOUR STATE SENATOR

[2far 185]

The biggest problem that we have is that there aren't very many of us. At the end of January, CSC had less than 15,000 I129f cases pending. If you could motivate every one of them to take action, no matter how loud we scream, it would only be a faint whisper compared to the voices of millions of illegal aliens.

[pocheros 101]

I find it odd how illegal immigrants are blamed for USCIS for being slow. Wouldn't all the stringent criteria meant to prevent people from immigrating illegally in the first place be responsible? I'm just saying...

[bingowashisnameoh 17]

I'm an early August filer

Called today to hear that they processing JUL 18 cases

The same answer I've been getting from them for more then 4 months, since December 2012

And they cannot open "service request" because its "within normal processing time"

Imagine the situation:

3 years from now,.. they still processing.. JUL 18, which is quite the possibility, considering number of Dream_Act/IllegalChildren applications they giving the priority in the comming months/years

would it be possible to start a legal action against them? When? After 1 year of waiting? 3 years? 5 years?

Any lawyers out there? Just curious

you can put it before a Federal Court and see if it asks a question if you as an American have had your rights violated in any way....but it would have to go through a Federal Court. You might want to examine the law a little closer on how long legally they are allowed to take..i think 8 months is the max...so you may have something longer than that; but Federal Court would be the way to go with the rights question.

[Scott65 27]

I'm an early August filer

Called today to hear that they processing JUL 18 cases

The same answer I've been getting from them for more then 4 months, since December 2012

And they cannot open "service request" because its "within normal processing time"

Imagine the situation:

3 years from now,.. they still processing.. JUL 18, which is quite the possibility, considering number of Dream_Act/IllegalChildren applications they giving the priority in the comming months/years

would it be possible to start a legal action against them? When? After 1 year of waiting? 3 years? 5 years?

Any lawyers out there? Just curious

I am not attorney so not sure how much this would stand up.. Personally I think as others if a lawsuit was pursued for lack of processing the K1 and/or breach of contract this would fail. But I would think there is another approach. Under the preamble of the US Constitution we are all guaranteed fair treatment by the government. We are also guaranteed due process. Thus with all of the data gathered here on the VJ site and even USCIS admission of certain things there may be a case to prove this. Again I would think that a constitutional attorney would be the person to speak with. Here is the other caveat.. True we are only a small group who are trying to raise hell and awareness for the cause. Also look at how laden our courts are with law suits. I would think that the approval would come way before arguments were heard.

Maybe there is a VJ'er out there who is an attorney.

[I & B 273]

Congress ultimately decides how and to what extent US government agencies can be sued. There is something called the Administrative Procedures Act that lays out the details. As far as I can tell, however, it remains untested whether delayed I-129F petitioners could meet the "aggrieved" standard necessary for a successful suit under that act. There is also the option of a writ of mandamus to compel the USCIS to quickly process an individual's petition. There is a mixed record of such writs working against the USCIS, but almost all the examples I could find involved the USCIS's incompetence forcing a petitioner to miss a statutory deadline of some sort and thus being denied a benefit. I'm skeptical whether it would work in the case of a delayed I-129F.

Those hurdles are why I think they only ready avenue of redress is the political system. And so I again urge everyone to study the problem, study their own individual situation, and then contact their elected representatives (and the ombudsman and media).

Edited April 12, 2013 by I & B

[pachacuti 154]

The biggest problem that we have is that there aren't very many of us. At the end of January, CSC had less than 15,000 I129f cases pending. If you could motivate every one of them to take action, no matter how loud we scream, it would only be a faint whisper compared to the voices of millions of illegal aliens.

If (and it is a huge if) we could actually get all of us (or even 10% of us) to organize and scream, we would get noticed. Imagine, if you will, that 1500 people (that is A LOT of people) with picket signs were marching around in front of CSC. That wouldn't get noticed? Of course it would. It would make national news. The question is then, what national conversation would that start? Or would it die with a whimper? I think if you focus on this affecting the families of AMERICAN CITIZENS, it would survive better.

Just sayin.

[2far 185]

I find it odd how illegal immigrants are blamed for USCIS for being slow. Wouldn't all the stringent criteria meant to prevent people from immigrating illegally in the first place be responsible? I'm just saying...

pocheros, please don't misunderstand my comment. I'm not blaming illegal immigrants. I fully believe that the situation we are in is due to the handling of cases by USCIS. All of the analysis from the data has shown that the I-129F petition at CSC has been put on the back burner to prioritize the processing of the DACA applications.

My comment was only meant to shed some light on how insignificant our numbers are, and how I am starting to feel helpless in this situation. I have contacted both of my Senators, my Congressman, and the Ombudsman. All are more than happy to regurgitate the USCIS standard response of acknowledging that the I-129F processing times have "slipped" due to "competing agency priorities", but not one of them seems inclined to do anything about it. They are satisfied enough with the USCIS statement that they will realign resources. I haven't heard from many VJ members that have received more encouraging responses.

[JohnR! 5,495]

I'm an early August filer

Called today to hear that they processing JUL 18 cases

The same answer I've been getting from them for more then 4 months, since December 2012

And they cannot open "service request" because its "within normal processing time"

Imagine the situation:

3 years from now,.. they still processing.. JUL 18, which is quite the possibility, considering number of Dream_Act/IllegalChildren applications they giving the priority in the comming months/years

would it be possible to start a legal action against them? When? After 1 year of waiting? 3 years? 5 years?

Any lawyers out there? Just curious

You can hire a lawyer but it will be very difficult to find grounds upon which to sue. Consider a writ of mandamus if your adjudication should take excessively long.

[Lex Specialis 38]

You can sue the USCIS director and the DHS Secretary in federal courts pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act in order to compel them to give you an answer. However, given the backlog of our federal courts, by the time you get to the Rule 26 Conference, you will have received the I-129F twice over. It is an expensive and impractical route in this case.

[moemac59 192]

Aside from legal action, I'm wondering how to contact the director of the USCIS, or someone in the chain in command in charge of the CSC. That person has got to be put under pressure. That repeated non sense of "July 18" is offensive and insulting. Someone has got to be held accountable. It seems that Congress has little power based on many petitioners (including myself) who have contacted Senators and Congressman. DHS (Dept of homeland Security) is part of the executive branch, meaning someone at the White House can do something. From reading these threads on this forum, it's clear to me that law abiding, tax paying Americans are being grossly mistreated and disrespected. Additionally perhaps media attention would get something done. Once the general public becomes aware of the cruel joke also known as the USCIS, maybe the lying bastards there would be compelled to clean up this mess. 60 Minutes anyone??

I like the 60 Minutes idea alot!! Seriously, you should consider contacting the Today show as well. They seem to love human interest stories like this and might be all over it. Does not hurt to try. USCIS needs to start being more accountable to the people who pay their salaries and maybe if the media shed some light on just how slow the process time is for people who have chosen to do things by the book and obey the law, then the pressure might be on to speed up the processing of applications.

[res4688 18]

They are working on these other applications under direct order from our Grand Pooba.......legal action is not allowed

by his decree.......why would you even think to deny these illegals from getting a chance to legally live here?

You're thinking that we who follow the process legally should have some preference? HA!

In most other countries those who enter a illegally will be deported but because the U.S. wants to try to please everyone they are now giving preferential treatment to Illegal immigrants to file their paperwork. This is absolutely bulls... I have no problems with someone getting their papers but they need to do it the legal way, not wait ten years and say well Ive been her illegally can i now please have my papers. Those of us who are doing it the right way are getting the third degree with super stringent background checks. where is the fairness in that especially when i waited over a year to get my approval as all these illegals get approved at record speeds.

[c.lucky 2]

You can sue the USCIS director and the DHS Secretary in federal courts pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act in order to compel them to give you an answer. However, given the backlog of our federal courts, by the time you get to the Rule 26 Conference, you will have received the I-129F twice over. It is an expensive and impractical route in this case.

Not only that but they will then use the lawsuit as an excuse for slowing down applications even more. They will say that dealing with the lawsuit is siphoning off resources that could have otherwise been used to process the I-129F applications...Got to love big government .

[pocheros 101]

pocheros, please don't misunderstand my comment. I'm not blaming illegal immigrants. I fully believe that the situation we are in is due to the handling of cases by USCIS. All of the analysis from the data has shown that the I-129F petition at CSC has been put on the back burner to prioritize the processing of the DACA applications.

My comment was only meant to shed some light on how insignificant our numbers are, and how I am starting to feel helpless in this situation. I have contacted both of my Senators, my Congressman, and the Ombudsman. All are more than happy to regurgitate the USCIS standard response of acknowledging that the I-129F processing times have "slipped" due to "competing agency priorities", but not one of them seems inclined to do anything about it. They are satisfied enough with the USCIS statement that they will realign resources. I haven't heard from many VJ members that have received more encouraging responses.

I'm sorry! I made a rude assumption.

Truly, I hope USCIS gets itself sorted out and your case makes some progress soon.

[JMH 21]

Hey everybody!

I’m not sure suing would be an effective or timely method, even if it was allowed to be heard in court. My understanding (I’m not a lawyer) is that it would need to be a class action lawsuit though, for it to affect more than one case, and have more than one plaintiff.

The only thing that seems to be effective is getting Senator or Representative help. The only thing that seems to help is getting political attention. The problem is we are all from different states and have different representation. Some are helpful, some want to be helpful but are unreliable, and some don’t care.

My beloved fiancée suggested a flash mob outside the CSC and one of the mass media photos raising awareness, such as “if we get 100,000 likes, the California Service Center will start to approve the 19th of July’s petitions after 6 months of ignoring them”. While it made me smile, I think she is right about uniting through the internet.

So, as we are separated geographically and political pressure is the only thing they respond to, I’ve thought a petition could be useful. I read that there are about 15,000 of us, but I know all my friends and family would sign it also. I think the minimum threshold for a response is 25,000 signatures. I don’t think that would be difficult if we all put it on our Facebook page and asked our friends and family to sign it.

If we already have a petition, I apologize for missing it and will gladly sign it now. We are August CSC filers, and so I don’t watch as closely as I used to. It’s heartbreaking.

The website for making such a petition is here (along with a quick video exlaining): https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/how-why/introduction

Good luck to us all - Jason

Edited April 13, 2013 by JMH