ONCE A LAWSUIT IS FILED, THE CLOCK STARTS

Once a lawsuit is filed, the clock starts. Until you file the lawsuit, there’s no countdown - no actual clock. When USCIS receives a copy of the lawsuit, they have 60 days to answer. And even then, we often don’t hear until day 55 or day 56. I believe there is simply no substitute to a lawsuit that the U.S. attorney and the government defendants are going to have to defend. Sure, you can threaten to file a lawsuit by sending a threatening letter, but in my experience, such letters have been ineffectual and generally ignored. They’re considered low priority and that’s because there is no urgency to respond.

It’s just simple logistics and human nature. Unless there’s a deadline, nothing is really going to happen. Sometimes, I do reach out to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. But rarely. I don’t believe in waiting for scraps from USCIS. I believe in asserting what my clients are entitled to under the law and getting for my client what they deserve. In my view, it’s the only way to hold accountable an agency that doesn’t always seem to care about doing its job well. Jim