Legal Law

Why is my immigration case delayed?

Recently a client of ours, let’s call him Muhammad H, married an American citizen. Your spouse filed the Alien Relative Application (I-130) on your behalf with the Adjustment of Status Application (I-485). She became pregnant and had a child while the petition was pending. Soon, his application was pending for over a year and it became apparent that he was seriously delayed. The customer had scheduled an infopass appointment and checked with their local congressman, but received no response.

Concerned that he might have filed the petition incorrectly, he came to our office to ask what could be done. We discuss your case and review a copy of your application. It looked like I had presented it correctly and we didn’t see any obvious red flags. There did not appear to be any obvious reason for the delay in resolving your request.

We explained that your best option would be to file an injunction in federal court. Filing a mandamus requires a federal judge to review the application and request that they order immigration to adjudicate it within a reasonable time. Once the request is submitted and duly notified, the government has 60 days to respond.

In this case, the injunction was archived and the government was notified. Within 60 days, we received a call from the US attorney’s office saying that they were not going to fight our mandamus and that our client’s interview was scheduled. Muhammad H. and his wife attended the interview and in particular the immigration officer was very professional in the interview and only had a few questions for Muhammad and his wife. In 2 weeks we receive a decision on your case in the mail. Filing the mandamus warrant put the client in control and now he can get on with his life without the worry of immigration hanging over his head. This made him very happy, as at least it was one more thing he didn’t have to worry about.

Although this case involved a petition based on marriage, an injunction can be used on any I-130 petition for an alien relative or an I-485 application for adjustment of status. In addition, an injunction may be filed for any delayed I-140 application for employment or a delayed N-400 application for naturalization. A mandamus can also be used in the context of asylum or really in any kind of procedure where the government is causing a delay. The mandamus court order is a powerful tool that can put you in charge of your immigration application.

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