These summaries are not intended as legal advice. Please contact a licensed attorney to discuss the specifics of your case.
Viewing entries tagged
unreasonable delay
The DC Circuit has dismissed an unreasonable delay action brought by EB-5 petitioners, finding that absent any credible allegations that USCIS is not following their own processing rules, allowing individual litigants to “skip the line” would not do anything to systemically improve processing times.
The full text of Da Costa v. Immigration Investor Program Office can be found here: https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/1620A36CDDF5CDD985258A0F00514CE6/$file/22-5313-2013134.pdf
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
The Fourth Circuit reversed the dismissal of unlawful delay claims brought by U visa applicants who filed their applications for status in 2015 and 2016, and remanded the claims for further proceedings before the District Court. The court, however, found no authority to compel the agency to issue pre-wait list employment authorization to the applicants.
The full text of Gonzalez, et. al v. Cuccinelli can be found here:
