The Sixth Circuit has determined that U visa applicants may bring unreasonable delay claims related to USCIS’ failure to adjudicate their applications for waitlist purposes and failure to make a bona fide determination on their applications. However, the court cannot compel USCIS to adjudicate pre-waitlist employment authorization applications.
“Nor are we persuaded that USCIS’s release of its average U-visa-application processing time should prompt us to decide that Plaintiffs’ years-long wait is reasonable. The average adjudication time says little about the unreasonableness of USCIS’s delay in Plaintiffs’ case; this number also does not alter how most (if not all) U-visa adjudications might be unreasonably delayed. We find it unhelpful to fixate on the average snail’s pace when comparing snails against snails in a snails’ race.”
The full text of Barrios Garcia v. DHS can be found here:
https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/21a0217p-06.pdf
An amended opinion can be found here:
https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/22a0027p-06.pdf