Anyone with a lawsuit against USCIS or thinking about a lawsuit (Merged)

Nabil Shalan Case

Amo585 and mohamadmohamad,

I was able to retrieve all relevant information on Nabil Shalan case from the PACER website (costs me big bucks :) ). This case is a mess. It has been going on for the past year.

I did not have enough time to read all document. I am attaching a few relevant docs.
 
milashka said:
Hello everyone,
I am loosing my patience too :(

Thank you.
i dont think you need any support, just go for ,and you dont need to build any case, for naturalization , the law and operating procedures says 120 period maximum, i dont also i think that you need and lawyer, i was reviewing the case on Pacer website, they always settel them, because they kow theyare screwing up, you and every one else have the right to file after 120 days period is over.
 
sfaizullah said:
Hi Mohamed,
I am in NJ, can use let me know or give me the pointer so I can seach. Mine is name check pending only.

Best Regards
i sure can, i will try to do some research, and whatever esult i founf i will pass it on to you.
http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/
that is the link to pacer, but you need to be registered to use it, and it can be expensive sometimes.
 
USCIS new verification unit

Hey guys what you think of this new unit, is there is any hop, it can fix the bloody mess we all tangled too
 
Balto said:
Thanks man! I am in Maryland. The problem is the USCIS usually won't tell you if it's just the name check. My initial interview was in November, got cancelled due to "a file had not been received", and rescheduled for January, and 100 days came and went and heard nothing from them. InfoPassed once in March, got basically nothing but BS. Well, I am not going to take this crap any longer, and I know I have no criminal record (FOIPAed back with No Record), so I will hold you responsible for "they always settled" :D . You know when you take on a fight like this, espcially via Pro Se, you always have that fear of "what if" on the back of your mind, yet you were left with no choice but to fight, so help me God :)

Regards,

Balto
I WOULD THIS:
1- IF YOU HAVENT HAD YOUR INTERVIEW CODUCTED YET, i beleive you still can sue then under the mandamus rwite, because they basically have failed to perform their duties, which is processing your case according to the processing schedule, so when they start interviewing other similar cases, with similar date of receipt, similarly they should conduct your interview.
2-IF YOU HAVE HAD YOUR INTERVIEW, BUT NO DECISION YET,(PENDING NAME CHACK) that is the most common, and they are obligated to make adecision in timely manner, actually just now i read in a case called Kudsi V. Gonzales that the court have order the att. general to finish the namcheck , and MORE IMPORTANLTY "if the USCIS did not receive a completed name check withing 90 Days, USCIS shall treat the failure AS A SUCCESSFULLY COMLETED NAME CHECK and issue the certificate of naturalization" and in a footnote the court observed that FBI is a component of the departement of justice, thus IT WAS IMPORTANT THE THE PEYTITIONER IN THEina 336(b) action had named NOT only the dDHS official but the attorney general as well.
while this decision was a very good new for the delayed naturalization, the contest still valid for other uses as in delayed I-485 , because it clearly make the failure of completing the name check, i s a failure on their part.
i will attach the document where i found this this so every one can read it , and make a good use of it in court.
last but not least, there always the risk of what if, but you go with what you think is right, and what have worked bbefore , and what the law said, in other words, if you are filing for yourself, you have to gaer up , and arm yourself with all the relevant information, and be ready to argue in front of the a Judge, and make you case.
 
Notable cases

Does any one have access to cases listed here? These are the cases listed in the bulletin from AILF where the courts have over-ruled the Danilov decision.

U.S.A. v. Hovsepian, 359 F.3d 1144, 1151 (9th Cir. 2004); Al-Kudsi v. Gonzales, No. 05-1584 (D. Ore.
Mar. 22, 2006) (unpublished) (explicitly rejecting Danilov); Shalan v. Cheroff, No. 05-10980, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 253 (D. Mass. 2006) (unpublished) (explicitly rejecting Danilov); Saidi v. Jenifer, No. 05-71832, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 35466 (E.D. Mich. 2005) (unpublished) (explicitly rejecting Danilov); Essa v. USCIS, No. 05-1449, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 38803 (D. Minn. 2005) (unpublished) (explicitly rejecting Danilov); El-Daour v. Chetoff, No. 04-1911, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18325 (W.D. Pa. 2005) (unpublished) (explicitly rejecting Danilov); Castracani v. Chertoff, 377 F. Supp. 2d 71 (D.D.C. 2005); Angel v. Ridge, No. 04-4121, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10667 (S.D. Ill. 2005); Sweilem v. USCIS, NO. 05-125, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19630 (N.D. Ohio 2005).
 
NOT properly effected service upon the US

Hello everyone,

I filed a Writ of Mandamus for I-485 in Central District of California two weeks ago and sent a copy of the summons and the complaint to the US Attorney Office via certified mail the day after.

Today I received a letter from US Attorney office that they have received a copy of the complaint and the summons but I have NOT properly effected service upon the united states. They have then included Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(I)(1)(A) which states that "Service upon the united states shall be effected as follows: ... or by sending a copy of the Summons and the Complaint by registered or certified mail addressed to the Civil Process Clerk at the office of the US Attorney ..."

Now, I was wondering if the reason they say I have not properly effected service is only because I did not put "ATTN::Civil Process Clerk" on the envelope the first time I sent them the complaint and the summons. It was addressed to the right suite number and everything else seems to be just fine. Any ideas on this would be highly appreciated.

Thank you all,
 
PendingN400 said:
Would you mind searching the 6th District for 1447(b) or writ of mandamus cases for naturalization? Thank you very much.
while i didnt find anything that have been filed in the 6th district, suing the UDCIS for a naturalization should a very strait forward case, not only because there is a statute, but also because of the overwhelming courts ruling, and here are few of the best cases that can be used anywhere, including, Shalan case and the aAl-Kudsi, the most recent , where the court explicitly cited that a failure of FBI and USCIS should be consider a complted namckecks, in addition to a document from the American Immigration Lawyers Assoc.
my suggestion is that if you are filing Pro_Se you should read , and understand the argument presented in this documents, it is helpful, in addition it shows how these courts have strongly rejected the Danilove casesthe only case that was in favor for the governement, but one minor thing , you should remember is that these ruling are useful in case of a simple Name Check delay, that doesnt have any other complications, if there anyother complication , you should find what other relevent information available
 
Notable cases

mohamedmohamed said:
i have tried to find some of these cases, specially the Al_kudsi but for some reason i couldnt, i think when the case is unpublishedthat mean it is not accessible for some reason, and that is one of our weak spot, we dont have the lgal skills enough to do some of these techincal issues.

I found the notable case of kudsi at this link
http://www.bibdaily.com/pdfs/Al-Kudsi.pdf
 
Eastbayer said:
Good evening! I am still trying to absorb information from this forum. The problem is I have a very demanding job. I may not have time to take care of any legal actions myself. Does anyone know a good lawyer (s) in bay area, CA, who has handled law suits against USCIS to expedite Name Check and charges reasonable fee? I live in a east bay city, ~45 min from SF. Would be happy to share the cost with anyone who is also interested in hiring a lawyer, or forming a study study group to take action together.

Please help. Any suggestions are appreciated.

If you hire an attorney, you will spend more time on this case than doing it yourself. All you need to do is write the complaint (see attached templates in previous postings on this forum). Prepare the summons, file it with the court and serve the defendants.

It should not take you more than 3-7 hours to prepare everything on a weekend. Less than 1 hour to file it in court, drive to the post office to mail the summons to defendants. A week or two later, you will have all returned receipt (mailed back to you), take a last trip to the court to file them and you are done.

Any attorney will take at least 2-3 hours of your time (during business days) + phone time + approx. 1-2 weeks of your net income (I would rather have a vacation instead :)).

Any updates on the case after it is filed will come directly to you because you are representing yourself. If you have a lawyer, such updates will have to go through him and imagine how many time you would try to call him to ask about your case.... Try to avoid lawyers as much as you can (Trust me)

If you prefer to hire an attorney, I have posted (on this forum) a list of the lawsuit case numbers filed against USCIS for the past 2-3 years nation wide. Go to PACER webpage, find the dockets of any lawsuit filed aginst USCIS in your destrict, and you will find the lawyer's name and contact info for each case.

Hope this helps
 
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Attorney Picking Guide

Ok everyone, I got the response from US Attorney to my 1447b petition, they filed a bs defensive answer. They pretty much admitted that I applied for naturalization and had an interview and my application is still unadjudicated. They have denied all the remaining charges that I brought up against them. I have an e-mail from FBI that says that my name check has been completed years ago and they do not care. I guess they are not giving up that easily. It is possible maybe they still have not been able to transfer my file yet (because I moved and filed lawsuit) and they were forced to give an answer to the judge because the judge ordered them to give an answer within certain amount of days. After talking and having numerous paid consultations with attorneys, I wanted to share you my experience that I came across three types of immigration attorneys.

Category 1. This type of attorney only files applications such as green card, employment or naturalization applications on behalf of their clients. This type of attorney has no experience with federal lawsuits and will probably advise you to just wait. STAY AWAY FROM THIS TYPE OF ATTORNEY because they can't help you with a federal lawsuit and they will give you bad advice, they will tell you to just wait. There are many of these attorneys out there who just told me to wait. They practice usually all kinds of law, not just immigration, which is not good because they are not specialized enough to be good at what they are doing. They probably do not even know of 1447b.

Category 2. This type of attorney does everything that the first attorney does but in addition, he or she files petitions in the federal courthouse such as 1447b, just like the petitions many board members have filed here by themselves. This attorney will file petition but does not have experience with further ongoing litigation. In other words all this attorney will do for you is take your money and file your petition on your behalf. This attorney will tell you that they will probably settle your case before it goes to trial and he is only suing USCIS to motivate USCIS to settle your case. They usually ask around $2500-$3500 for filing this petition but I know of some who ask around $7500. They may also offer to go to USCIS local office and talk to a supervisor on your behalf but we all know how uneffective that is. Keep in mind, all they do is file the same petition that many others here have filed on their behalf. Their fees do not include any further litigation if the case is not settled with 1 simple petition. However, a very very important thing to remember is, not all the time will USCIS settle just because you filed a lawsuit against them. They may start defending and litigating against you and they may even try to make sure that you lose your case with prejudice against you, which means that you can not bring any other lawsuits against them on the same naturalization application if you lose your case or if they can get it dismissed. Federal Courts are very TECHNICAL and they can try to get your case dismissed at any time based on technical stuff that you may not know of, such as jurisdiction isues, even if you have just a very clear case. They may do this througout your case. I say stay away from Category 2 attorneys as well because all they do is file a petition for you but they can not further litigate your case if USCIS does not choose to settle immediately after you file your petition.

Category 3. This type of attorney does everything that the first and second type of attorney does, but specializes especially and only on Federal litigation specifically against USCIS. They have experience with the federal and immigration judges and they have argued numerous immigration cases against USCIS in front of the judges for several years. They have experience litigating in federal appeals courts of possibly even different districts and even possibly the supreme court. This is the kind of attorney you want working for you. There are very few of them and you have to do research to find this type of specialized attorney.

Most category 2 attorneys will want to file a petition on your behalf only and tell you that USCIS will probably settle, but you need to ask them, what if USCIS does not settle, do you have experience with federal litigation against immigration? How long have you been doing it? Can you win this case if they don't settle? Also ask other immigration attorneys who they think is the best federal litigator against immigration if USCIS does not settle easily after you file your initial petition against immigration. This is the best way to find the right attorney.

Also most attorneys in category 1 and 2 practice state, criminal law, divorce and other things besides immigration. This is not good, because they are not specialized enough. Your attorney must be specialized in federal litigation and especially against immigration only. You can call and ask other attorneys who they think is a good federal litigator against USCIS. Keep in mind, when you are filing lawsuit your cases are becoming model cases for those who are coming after you. So file your lawsuits and pursue them very strongly to win them, because if you lose, then the government can use it like Danilov case against the people who are filing new lawsuits after you. Keep in mind, no matter how clear your case is, USCIS may still try to get your lawsuit dismissed by defending it, because they may think it would be easier to get your lawsuit dismissed rather than having to approve your application instead. Also some districts and US attorneys are tougher than say for example the California district where the US attorneys are cooperative and will try to settle most of the time. So be prepared if USCIS starts defending, be ready to hire an attorney or be ready to proceed with your case to trial if they don't immediately settle after you file your petition.
 
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NameCheck! said:
My name check has been pending since 3/11/05. I've advise me.
the nameck process is different than the document you have received, to better understand the process read this document, when the FBI GUy resposible for the name checke xplains how it work.
regrdless when your GC expires, you have the right to have to be naturalized, after a preiod of time , and and after toy meet certain requirememnts, the USCIS is being paid tax dollar to do just that, the owe it to you, and to everyother tax payer to do their work.
if you read trough the previous post, you will find that what you need to do is to filea petition for haring with your district court 1447(b), and 99% the USCIS will either ask you to dismiss your case, and they will adjudicate your cases, or even if they tried to tgo tothe trial, 99% chances they will loos to, and the court will ask the to adjudicate your case.
there are plenty of cases like this in these make sure you read and understand them, and then you understand better.
 
NJ complaints

On thursday I went on pacer website and found some cases submitted in Jersey. I also called a lawyer from one of the cases on friday. He said he did lots of complaints against USCIS, he does joined 1447 and mandamus in same complaints. he also said that he charges $3000.
After thinking about it, I decided not to file now, I am going to give it few more month and then file, maybe wait till the 2 year anniversary of my application which is July 2006.
attached the cases I found on the website. I'm puting the rest on another post.
 
needsolution said:
I believe that if the issue was really FBI failing to complete name checks on time, I would be more understanding. However believe me, there are many people out there whose name checks have already been completed many months and years ago and USCIS does not care even if you go to the local USCIS office and show them proof of your name check being completed by FBI. I am one of them and I know of others as well whose name checks have been completed. The reason I know is because I was able to obtain independently from FBI my name check status. Some of those people ended up suing including me. USCIS lies and puts the blame on an outside agency doing the background checks which is FBI. So let's remember that it is difficult now to obtain the status of your name check directly from FBI unless you have a senator or cogressman get involved with FBI directly. All those people who are told by USCIS that their background checks are pending, they are just believing USCIS that it is so. However, this is the standard answer that USCIS is giving to everyone, so your name check could have very well been completed months or years ago and you may be waiting because USCIS lies to you and says that your name check is not completed yet because they just do not want to process your file due to the fact that they don't like you or they don't want to work on your file for a reason. The most important thing here is that everyone on this board needs to know that not all cases which USCIS says "name check pending" are really name check pending. There are many others whose name checks have been completed and yet USCIS hides behind "name/background check pending" on those cases which they choose not to adjudicate.


Needsolution,

I don't know if it is going to answer your concern but the way it was explained to me by my senator's immigration liaison is this:

When FBI completes a name check they send the results to USCIS central office in Washington DC. The results are sent on a AUDIO TAPE. Sometime FBI misses the part of the name and/or sometime they pronounce the name wrong with so many difficult names to pronounce from the immigrant community. That is the reason that USCIS never receive the results and they show the background check is still pending eventhough it has been cleared by the FBI.
 
mohamedmohamed said:
i think is it good enough if you file WOF by yourself withpout your husband....

Hey, mohamed x 2, what is WOF...Writ of Fandamus :D :D :D

Smile please, you're on candid camera
:p :D :D
 
Thank you everybody for your support. But you know I have been collecting alot of data, cases, and laws about this issue, and this forum helped alot too, it really gave me insight and inspiration to fight. Unlike the last time, the AUSA was very nice to me, and everyone in her office sounded like they are familiar with my case, she said that she is willing to settle this out of court because neither her nor USCIS want to go to court with a case like this for it is imbarecing. I kept sending them exhibits almost every week, everything I managed to get a hold of; alot of it from this forum, I filed it in the court as exhibit and filed a copy to the AUSA, and stated that in a letter to the court; that I am suing the DHS, FBI, USCIS, and US Attorney General, and they can eat me alive in court if they want too, but as a Pro Se Plaintiff I wanted to establish records as much as I can to protect myself and fight back in court. I really think that this what helped me the most in this case, and it makes their job almost impossible to finish. For everytime I file an exhibit, they have to answer for it in court or in their response to the court, and to refute almost 50 exhibits + the complaint of 10 pages, I think it is very difficult to do that, specially with the number of cases they have been recieving of this type. So, use their laziness against them, load them with work we all know they would not be able to do, specially when they are working against 60 days deadline, they either finish their job, or give up, and we all know what they do best; of course GIVE UP, they don't want to work!!! One other thing, dont you ever, ever show them that you are worried or weak or soft, show them your balls, and that you are ready for a good old American fight all the way. They will try to scare you away at the biggining, but don't be scared away hold your grounds and fight for your right, prove to them that you deserve this honor of holding the US citizenship.

She also said that they pulled my case to the US Attorney General's HQ. but she wouldnot say why, and she told me that they only allowed 50 expedite name ckeck per month and they managed to get me one in March and my case should be approved by May 26th. So, I am waiting. I also told her that I will not dismiss my case till after I have my naturalization certificate and go apply for a US passport then I will mail out the dismiss motion to court.

I don't want to sound like I have a big ego, but if you have a 1447(b) pending, please try to read my previous posts in this thread, you might find something useful to help you out in your case. and I sincerely wish everybody the best in their endeavors to earn their US citizenship, which is really an honor.

P.S: for the record, I don't think they are discriminating against anybody, I am from Egypt, and my name is the most commom name in the Arab and Islamic world; Mohamed, but I am positive they are just incompetent, even the AUSA said so, that the system is very badly broken in this background issue and they are really working on it. Go figure when ??!!
 
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