Anyone with a lawsuit against USCIS or thinking about a lawsuit (Merged)
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Here is what the N.D. of California Pro Se handbook says about amending your complaint:
Can I change or amend the complaint after I file it?
Changing a document that has already been filed with the court is known as “amending” the document. Under Rule 15(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, you can amend your complaint at any time before the defendant files an answer. You do not need to get permission from the court or from the defendant to amend before the defendant answers. If you want to amend your complaint after defendant has filed an answer, Rule 15(a) lets you do this in one of two ways.
First, you can file the amended complaint if you get written permission from the defendant. When you file the amended complaint, you must also file the document showing that you have written permission from the defendant to amend your complaint.
Second, if the defendant won’t agree to let you amend your complaint, you must file a motion with the court to get its permission to amend your complaint. In that motion, you must explain why you need to amend your complaint. You should include a copy of the amended complaint that you want to file. If the court grants your motion, you can then file your amended complaint.
When you file an amended complaint, Civil Local Rule 10-1 requires you to file an entirely new complaint. Because an amended complaint completely replaces the original complaint, you cannot just file the changes that you want to make to the original complaint. The caption of your amended complaint should say: “FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT.” If you amend your complaint a second time, the caption should say: “SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT.”
Here is Rule 15(a) from the FRCP.
Rule 15. Amended and Supplemental Pleadings
(a) Amendments.
A party may amend the party's pleading once as a matter of course at any time before a responsive pleading is served or, if the pleading is one to which no responsive pleading is permitted and the action has not been placed upon the trial calendar, the party may so amend it at any time within 20 days after it is served. Otherwise a party may amend the party's pleading only by leave of court or by written consent of the adverse party; and leave shall be freely given when justice so requires. A party shall plead in response to an amended pleading within the time remaining for response to the original pleading or within 10 days after service of the amended pleading, whichever period may be the longer, unless the court otherwise orders.
WhyThisDelay
Registered Users (C)
Thanks Lazycis for your inputs.
I can prepare the draft (it's easy with all the help from this portal). My only concern is that if I've to physically appear in court to defend myself. The court location is pretty far off from my place. In that case I'd want my attorney to go there and represent me. Hiring an attorney also puts pressure on ausa that they are dealing with a professional and not try stupid defence like the mtd. Finally I feel that I dont have that much time and energy that a pro se case would require - my work schedule is rigorous with a big commute.
Is that thing possible - preparing the draft and then asking the attorney to bring down his/ her cost. Has someone tried it?
I can prepare the draft (it's easy with all the help from this portal). My only concern is that if I've to physically appear in court to defend myself. The court location is pretty far off from my place. In that case I'd want my attorney to go there and represent me. Hiring an attorney also puts pressure on ausa that they are dealing with a professional and not try stupid defence like the mtd. Finally I feel that I dont have that much time and energy that a pro se case would require - my work schedule is rigorous with a big commute.
Is that thing possible - preparing the draft and then asking the attorney to bring down his/ her cost. Has someone tried it?
WhyThisDelay
Registered Users (C)
did attorney have to appear physically in court?
Gurus / experts.
In any of the cases that you have seen, did any of the case get litigated? Did you (as pro se) or your attorney representing you had to physically appear in the court to defend your case?
Thanks.
Gurus / experts.
In any of the cases that you have seen, did any of the case get litigated? Did you (as pro se) or your attorney representing you had to physically appear in the court to defend your case?
Thanks.
Amend Complaint
Thanks, Sir.
I read the part in the handbook. Also, I asked the court clerk for the part also today. My main concern is time! For my understand is that it will be re-started if I file an amend complaint, is it right? Please help me to confirm. I cannot waste almost three months time.
AUSA said I should add USCIS as a defendant. I requested her to write a permission for amend, but she did not reply!
If somebody had some experience and knowledge about this, please share with me. Many thanks.
Best Regards,
Amy
Thanks, Sir.
I read the part in the handbook. Also, I asked the court clerk for the part also today. My main concern is time! For my understand is that it will be re-started if I file an amend complaint, is it right? Please help me to confirm. I cannot waste almost three months time.
AUSA said I should add USCIS as a defendant. I requested her to write a permission for amend, but she did not reply!
If somebody had some experience and knowledge about this, please share with me. Many thanks.
Best Regards,
Amy
As per the guidlines, you should not loose time due to ammending unless the defendants ask for extension. This is what I understood from Paz posting from California Pro-Se book
Rookie, please help
Friends,
Here is my case details:
Filed my case VSC, DO is Hartford
PD 03/31/2006
Interview : 08/21/2006
Sent requested N-14 info on Mar 1st. Tax documents and rental lease was sent.
During Interview I got a letter stating that I passed my english and civics test and they will mail me N-14.
Now the question is, Can suing help my case? I am tired of waiting and not able to do anything in my personal life.
Any of you sued Hartford DO?
I am real rookie in this, as I go through all your threads, any advice will be of great help.
Other than checking status, what else a congressman/Senator can do? Any of you have sample letters you sent which can be shared?
Thank you
LM
Friends,
Here is my case details:
Filed my case VSC, DO is Hartford
PD 03/31/2006
Interview : 08/21/2006
Sent requested N-14 info on Mar 1st. Tax documents and rental lease was sent.
During Interview I got a letter stating that I passed my english and civics test and they will mail me N-14.
Now the question is, Can suing help my case? I am tired of waiting and not able to do anything in my personal life.
Any of you sued Hartford DO?
I am real rookie in this, as I go through all your threads, any advice will be of great help.
Other than checking status, what else a congressman/Senator can do? Any of you have sample letters you sent which can be shared?
Thank you
LM
You need to file a motion for leave to file amended complaint (if you are going to make changes associated with USCIS in your complaint) and to add an additional defendant. Written consent from AUSA will not help as you are trying to add a new party - USCIS. Use rule 15(a) FRCP as a basic for your motion.
In my understanding, after your motion is granted, you will get summons for USCIS director and you will have to serve a copy of amended complaint to USCIS. An amended complaint will look just like your original complaint, but will be titled "First Amended Complaint" and will include all the changes you want to make. You will need to serve a copy to AUSA as well.
Of course, it will delay your case but it does not mean you will start from square one. Read Rule 15(c)(3) - USCIS should have known that it will be a defendant in your case so your amendment will relate back to your original filing date. AUSA will have 10 days to respond to the amended complaint so the delay will not be huge.
Do not be afraid, read local rules for your court regarding amendments and file a motion. It's not as difficult as it seems after you've done it!
I would say that suing will not hurt your case. Worst case, you lose court battle and continue waiting. If you read this thread, you will see that suing is working.
Congressman/Senator can pass a legislation to resolve this mess. But they could not help much in individual cases.
Pretrial conference + hearing of motion to dismiss
I file WOM Pro Se in February 2007. 60 days later we got MTD and immideatly file the respond. Couple of days latter receive the notification of hearing for MTD on June 1, right after it received the letter notification of Pretrial conference for June 6. Is anybody had a similar experience. Why we got both? If I loose MTD what will happend with pretrial?
Did anybody went for hearing of MTD? How do I need to prepare?
Did anybody went for Pretrial conference? Also, how do I need to prepare? I don't see much info about it anywhere... Please experts help!!!!
I file WOM Pro Se in February 2007. 60 days later we got MTD and immideatly file the respond. Couple of days latter receive the notification of hearing for MTD on June 1, right after it received the letter notification of Pretrial conference for June 6. Is anybody had a similar experience. Why we got both? If I loose MTD what will happend with pretrial?
Did anybody went for hearing of MTD? How do I need to prepare?
Did anybody went for Pretrial conference? Also, how do I need to prepare? I don't see much info about it anywhere... Please experts help!!!!
Oath letter received
2 years after N400 was submitted and over 15 months after the interveiw oath letter is finally received:
http://boards.immigration.com/showthread.php?p=1678654#post1678654
2 years after N400 was submitted and over 15 months after the interveiw oath letter is finally received:
http://boards.immigration.com/showthread.php?p=1678654#post1678654
Please share your exeprience. What's happened there and after? I have pretrial in one week.
Thanks Paz for the reply. I think I will do the same, bring a list of my travels with me to the oath. you said he added it to the total of days abroad do you mean they have your N400 application on time of oath?
(although I'm not an expert on it
) the cases that I saw in our district did not go to the heating stage, except for (perhaps) 2-3 in the last 2 years. Most cases I see on pacer get dismissed, and more than a half of those are dismissed even before the answer/MTD filed. Also, yesterday a lawyer from Colorado called. (Perhaps some of you remener about 2 wks ago I called the reporter on the article that was discissed here: it mentioned a DHS memo instructiong FBI to speed nc for filers of lawsuit.) Reporter gave me a number to the attorney who represented Muslim clients in CO and who apparently indicated that cis discriminate and all other (non-muslim) immigrants get approved "right away". I disagreed with the reporter (seeing huge number of cases in CA from different regions/faiths being involved.)
Anyway, the lawyer, Jihad Muhaisen, called me yesterday. He was quite nice and also said that he had a number
confused: ) of non-muslim clients among his cases. He specifically said, that most of his cases did not have a hearing except for a "couple" of cases. (I.e., they adjudicate before)-what we already know from our district. As some of you pointed before on the forum, the DHS memo he mentioned was a "last year snow", -the one from 2005 and no longer valid.Also he said that for Naturalization cases, he started to file COMBINED mandamus and 1447 complaints after one judge dismissed his mandamus complaint and he re-filed it together with 1447. So, once he comes from the different side of this argument, he basically agrees with my decision to file them together (although quite a few cases filed 1447 alone, and already won). Probably judges are tired to see WOM in N-400 cases and prefer to see nice+simple 1447 used. But, at the same time, how else a 1447 filer can push FBI to comlete a nc, since this law has timelimits strictly on CIS and CIS told us they're out of picture as our case is with FBI???
Anyway, so nowadays again, most cases don't go to a hearing.
Good luck!
Paz,
Since things could go worse instead of better if/when this bill passes, I hope you are right that it may not happen while we are now fighting our cases. But really in order to implement this restrictive language (2 yrs then assign extra task force to resolve), huge amt of things must be prepared, so this will not happen tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I just hope our AUSAs won't sit on our cases till these changes are implemented and help to resolve them!
Thank you for your reply!
Shvili
Wondering what's up with the AOS cases after MTD are denied....
In the past few weeks, we've seen several AOS cases that have passed the MTD stage where the courts have denied defendants' MTD. I checked one case that was mentioned in this forum about 3 weeks ago and noticed that defendants have filed an answer to the complaint shortly after the court denied the MTD. I'm wondering if anybody has any further updates regarding this particular case or any other similar cases.
Judging by what I've seen in Pacer for the cases assigned to the same AUSA, it looks like the naturalization cases do tend to get resolved before even getting to the MTD stage. The AOS cases are a different story though. Of course, this might only be specific to the district court where I'm in. However, in the last 3 weeks, the court has denied MTD on 3 cases in a row. Not sure if this will have any impact on how the defendants will approach the AOS cases from now on.... One woud think that they would think harder and may opt to do the right thing, which is to request expedite name checks and so forth.
I'm also wondering if Mingjing's success could be attributed to filing through an attorney. I think I did a fairly good job with my opposition to MTD. However, it just seems that Pro Se does not carry as much weight before AUSA since there's not much legal cost associated if defendants do end up having to reimburse that cost to plaintiffs.
In the past few weeks, we've seen several AOS cases that have passed the MTD stage where the courts have denied defendants' MTD. I checked one case that was mentioned in this forum about 3 weeks ago and noticed that defendants have filed an answer to the complaint shortly after the court denied the MTD. I'm wondering if anybody has any further updates regarding this particular case or any other similar cases.
Judging by what I've seen in Pacer for the cases assigned to the same AUSA, it looks like the naturalization cases do tend to get resolved before even getting to the MTD stage. The AOS cases are a different story though. Of course, this might only be specific to the district court where I'm in. However, in the last 3 weeks, the court has denied MTD on 3 cases in a row. Not sure if this will have any impact on how the defendants will approach the AOS cases from now on.... One woud think that they would think harder and may opt to do the right thing, which is to request expedite name checks and so forth.
I'm also wondering if Mingjing's success could be attributed to filing through an attorney. I think I did a fairly good job with my opposition to MTD. However, it just seems that Pro Se does not carry as much weight before AUSA since there's not much legal cost associated if defendants do end up having to reimburse that cost to plaintiffs.
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SLIS, I think you pointed the biggest drawback for decision to go pro se. Some people on the forum complained a few mo. ago that their pre-hearing delays are likely to be a result of a pro se status: Govern-t simply doesn't worry so much as less $$ is involved even if the case goes to a hearing and they lose. At the same time, they should watch their success rate and this factor should still motivate them to avoid getting to a hearing... Maybe there're more variables that affect this balance, but that's my take on it.
But we still save ourselves some $$$ which we'd likely lose hiring an attorney...
And hopefully in the end we will win!Lazycis already gave you the answer you were looking for. I would add only that at this point, doesn't really make any difference for your case that the clock starts from beginning or not by ammending your complaint. You made a mistake not listing USCIS as a defendant, you have to correct this in order to have a chance that your case will be solved or the court will make an order in your favor. Your interest is to have your case solved, so you need to ammend your complaint anyway.
No, perhaps I wasn't clear enough. He didn't have my N-400 form with him. He simply added up the number of days I put on this list, i.e, the total number of days abroad between the interview and the oath (it was something in the order of 40-50, I don't remember exactly).