When USCIS will not act, the federal courts will.

Your life is on hold in the most literal sense. You cannot travel without advance parole, you cannot change employers without risking your underlying petition, and every year you must renew an Employment Authorization Document that should have been mooted by a green card. We file a verified mandamus and Administrative Procedure Act complaint in the United States District Court, which ordinarily produces an interview or decision within sixty to ninety days. We remain counsel of record through the interview itself and through issuance of the decision.

You filed for citizenship because you earned it — through years of lawful residence, taxes paid, and a life built in this country. Instead of an oath ceremony, you received silence. Section 1447(b) of Title 8 gives the federal court jurisdiction to adjudicate your application itself if the agency fails to decide within one hundred twenty days of the examination. We plead mandamus, Administrative Procedure Act, and Section 1447(b) together; most clients are sworn in as United States citizens within ninety days of our complaint.

A spouse waiting abroad. A parent aging without you nearby. A child reaching majority while the agency does nothing. Immediate-relative petitions are statutorily the fastest category of immigration benefit the United States confers — and yet delays of two and three years are routine. We file federal mandamus; for derivative children approaching twenty-one, we calculate Child Status Protection Act implications and file with urgency. Adjudications ordinarily follow within sixty to ninety days of our complaint.

Affirmative asylum applicants are living in limbo — lawfully protected from removal, but without any of the guarantees of permanent status. Some of our clients have I-589 applications filed six, seven, and eight years ago. We file federal mandamus naming the Director of the Asylum Office and the principal agency officers; our clients are regularly placed on the Asylum Office short list within thirty days of service. Interview scheduling typically follows within sixty to one hundred twenty days.

When a renewal Employment Authorization Document is not issued on time, employers place applicants on unpaid leave, driver's licenses expire, and careers built over years can collapse in weeks. We file a formal expedite under the severe-financial-loss criterion and, in parallel, a federal mandamus complaint; where applicants have already lost employment, we file a motion for preliminary injunction. The majority of these cases produce the document within thirty to sixty days of filing.

Conditional residents cannot naturalize. They cannot travel with the confidence of a ten-year green card. Petitions that should be decided within twelve months routinely pend for three and four years. We file federal mandamus, which almost invariably produces an interview or decision within sixty to ninety days. Upon approval, we assess eligibility for N-400 at the earliest lawful date so no further delay is imposed by prior conditional status.

The EB-5 investor has committed eight hundred thousand or one million and fifty thousand dollars of personal capital in reliance on the United States' promise of a good-faith adjudication. Delays of four, five, and six years suspend capital and family relocation plans. We file federal mandamus with particular attention to the venue rules applicable to Immigrant Investor Program Office filings; most of our clients receive approval within one hundred twenty to one hundred eighty days of complaint filing.

The N-336 hearing is the applicant's statutory right after a denied N-400. Congress did not make the hearing optional. Yet requests pend one, two, and three years — frequently on meritorious cases. We file federal mandamus to compel scheduling, and for denials based on the examination we assess whether direct judicial naturalization under 8 U.S.C. § 1421(c) may be the superior remedy. Hearings are ordinarily scheduled within sixty to ninety days of our filing.

Principal asylees and refugees have a statutory right to derivative status for spouses and unmarried children. Yet I-730 adjudication is among the slowest family-reunification procedures within the Department of Homeland Security. Children age out. Spouses remaining in the country of feared persecution face ongoing danger. We file federal mandamus naming both Homeland Security and the Department of State, and coordinate with the National Visa Center and consular post. Adjudication ordinarily follows within ninety to one hundred eighty days.

An I-90 that pends for twelve, eighteen, or twenty-four months leaves the lawful permanent resident without a valid identity document. Employers cannot reverify, international travel is disrupted, and state agencies balk at driver's-license renewals. Before or alongside suit we assist clients in obtaining an I-551 "ADIT" stamp as interim evidence of status. Our federal mandamus filings routinely produce a new card in hand within two months of complaint service.

Advance parole is usually filed alongside an I-485 precisely so the applicant may travel during the pendency of the adjustment. When the document pends for the entire pendency of the underlying application, weddings, funerals, medical emergencies, and professional obligations cannot wait. We file federal mandamus to compel issuance of the standard-processing document, not merely emergency issuance. Travel documents typically issue within thirty to sixty days of complaint service.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services adjudicates scores of benefit categories — T and U visas, Special Immigrant Juvenile petitions, VAWA self-petitions, Temporary Protected Status applications, Provisional Unlawful Presence Waivers, and others. Each, when unreasonably delayed, is a proper subject for federal mandamus and Administrative Procedure Act relief. A licensed attorney reviews your receipt, filing date, and published processing times at no cost. Please telephone our office at (718) 484-7510 or complete the confidential intake form below.

We prepare a verified complaint in the United States District Court of proper venue, naming the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation as appropriate. The complaint pleads three elements: a clear right in the plaintiff to the adjudication sought, a clear non-discretionary duty on the defendant to act, and the unavailability of any other adequate remedy. Service is effected upon the United States Attorney for the district, the Attorney General at Main Justice, and each named defendant. The sixty-day answer clock runs from service. In the overwhelming majority of cases, adjudication issues before the answer is due. Where it does not, we prosecute the matter through summary judgment and, where warranted, petition for attorney's fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act.

The Administrative Procedure Act supplies the statutory cause of action and the corresponding standard of review. Section 555(b) obligates every federal agency to conclude matters presented to it within a reasonable time; Section 706(1) directs the reviewing court to compel action unreasonably withheld or unreasonably delayed. The TRAC factors govern the reasonableness inquiry: the rule of reason in the agency's timetable, Congress's expressed priorities, the nature of the interests prejudiced, the effect of expediting delayed action on higher or competing priorities, and any impropriety in the agency's conduct. We plead APA relief in tandem with mandamus in virtually every complaint. The same pleading reaches Social Security, veterans' benefits, federal-contract determinations, and every other matter of federal administrative adjudication.

We prepare and submit the initial Freedom of Information Act request to the appropriate agency component, identifying records with the specificity required by statute. Upon constructive denial — that is, the lapse of the twenty working-day response period without substantive reply — we file an administrative appeal to preserve the record and exhaust all non-judicial remedies. Where the appeal is ignored or denied, we file a complaint in United States District Court for injunctive relief compelling production, for de novo review of any withholding, and for attorney's fees and costs as a substantially prevailing party. Production of a complete, indexed record typically follows within ninety to one hundred twenty days of complaint filing.