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

boondi said:
Question?

I have been folllowing up on my case on Pacer, and notice that some cases closed (finished) by my attorney have a additional step after "Summons Issued", which says exactly "Summons Returned Executed as to AUSA". This usually happened after 20 odd days after the "Summons Issued".

I am worried that in my case, it has been almost 45 days, and no progress since "Attorney Designated" & "Summons Issueds". Am I assume that 60 days are ticking by? :confused: or is something missing from my Attorney's side?? I have called my attorney and they are not telling me much, other than to wait...

Please advise. Thank you!
On PACER there should be a record that the summonses+complaint were served to the defendants and US Attorney's Office. The 60 days starts when the US Attorney's office was served.
 
Madison04 said:
OK, here is my story:

My wife filed WOM last month after having been stuck in NC for 2.5 years. It took less than 10 days for FBI to clear her NC. The USCIS local office then sent her a letter last week for an interview today and we were almost certain that it would be a simple approval since she had already completed her regular I-485 interview 11 months ago. --Guess what? The officer told her that, yes the NC is cleared and normally they would approve her case right away, but since there is a lawsuit here the local office conducted a thorough review on my wife's records, which showed that she registered to vote in Massachusetts between 1998 and 1999 when she was a graduate student (this new "finding" was never discovered during previous reviews/interviews). That would be a felony and they may very well reject her AOS based on this. My wife's absolutely sure that she had never registered to vote as only citizens are allowed to do that. The officer said they would investigate this before the case is approved...

What is this? A retaliation from USCIS? Any suggestions? What about the lawsuit? Should we dismiss it right away since the foundation of the case (i.e. name check) has been resolved? Or do we keep it as long as possible to put pressure on USCIS (is this even legal)? Please help!

Thanks.
I do not think it is their retaliation. It is simply what they found during a name check. Maybe this is why it took so long for them to find a record on her. If you are absolutely sure she did not register to vote, then I would suggest keeping WOM lawsuit - it should help to resolve the problem faster. This in itself will be "pressure" you are looking for. And get a good atterney to resolve the case in court, in this case you have your day in court and a chance to rebattle.
 
Strange but check this out...

paz1960 said:
On PACER there should be a record that the summonses+complaint were served to the defendants and US Attorney's Office. The 60 days starts when the US Attorney's office was served.

Ok, that is what I should be expecting. But check this case out on Pacer (1:06-cv-05145), it is in the same district as mine, and I am trailing this person by 15 days. And it seems so, that this person's 60 day response is overdue, and there is NO update dismissal on the case. How could this be? Wouldn't this be means for "Default judjement". Thanks!
 
boondi said:
Ok, that is what I should be expecting. But check this case out on Pacer (1:06-cv-05145), it is in the same district as mine, and I am trailing this person by 15 days. And it seems so, that this person's 60 day response is overdue, and there is NO update dismissal on the case. How could this be? Wouldn't this be means for "Default judjement". Thanks!
hello boondi,
You forgot to mention, which district court. I'm sorry for my ignorance, but I don't remember in which district you are.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
paz1960 said:
hello boondi,
You forgot to mention which district court. I'm sorry for my ignorance, but I don't remeber in which district you are.

Sorry, I am Northern Illinois District (Chicago).
 
attorney for law suit in boston

I am new here. NIW EB2 140/485 RD May, 2005. 140 Aproved in 03,2006. 485 has been stuck in name check since 05/2004. I want to file WOM. Does anyone know a good attorney resource in Boston area?
 
Green card is here

Sony2006 said:
The physical green card would take 3 weeks at the most to reach your mail box! All my friends and all cases i heard about who have similar situation of AOS received the card 2-3 weeks after the stamp, even though the DO people say it could take up to one year!

you will be surprised when you get it sooner than they thought!

Congratulations and Good luck!

Sony

You are right, Sony. My I-485 was approved 12 days after I filed the lawsuit. The green card arrived 4 weeks after the approval.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who shares their experience in the forum, especially Publicus who started this forum and posted a lot of samples for us. Without your generous help and encouragement, I don't know how long I still need to wait.

Good luck to everyone.
 
boondi said:
Ok, that is what I should be expecting. But check this case out on Pacer (1:06-cv-05145), it is in the same district as mine, and I am trailing this person by 15 days. And it seems so, that this person's 60 day response is overdue, and there is NO update dismissal on the case. How could this be? Wouldn't this be means for "Default judjement". Thanks!
In case 1:06-cv-05145 (N.D. Ill.) Plaintiff filed her complaint on Sept. 22, 2006. She didn't file yet a Certificate of service, so we don't know when the US Attorney's office was served (that's when the 60 days clock starts ticking). Even if she served them on the same day (in person), today is Nov. 16, so only 55 days passed since then. Why do you think that the defendants' answer is overdue?
 
paz1960 said:
In case 1:06-cv-05145 (N.D. Ill.) Plaintiff filed her complaint on Sept. 22, 2006. She didn't file yet a Certificate of service, so we don't know when the US Attorney's office was served (that's when the 60 days clock starts ticking). Even if she served them on the same day (in person), today is Nov. 16, so only 55 days passed since then. Why do you think that the defendants' answer is overdue?

Sorry, I must have miscalculated. Still, that is only 5 days...

ahaa...this certificate of service is the keyword, I assume it is not mandatory to file this to start 60 days, rather to proove when 60 days end? Am i Correct?

So, i guess my question to my attorney should be, whether they ever recieved the return reciept? and what date does it say? this way, i can use that date for a benchmark.
 
A Question

I would like to thank all you guys for the excellent job you all are doing here explaining and posting your experiences.
I have a couple of trivial questions.
1). When I filed the return of service with court for my Petition case, on the same day I dropped the same document (return of service) at US Attorney's office, however, clerk at USA office told me that it wasn't necessary. I told her that it seems to be a common procedure to make USA aware that all thedefendants been served, she shrugged her shoulders but took papers anyway. In my understanding, this is a rule of thumb to file all the documents with USA as you do with court. Is that right? or am I missing something?
2). I filed my case with CAND court on 11/01/06. Should I contact USA myself or should I wait for them to contact me? What would you guys recommend? And how long I should wait before initiating a contact?
Thank you all in advance.
 
motion for grant e-file as pro-se

hi, all

anyone has example on how to file a motion to court to ask them grant e-file permission so pro se plaintiff can register to become an efiler.

this is required in north district of california. anyone file in San Jose, san francisco, or oakland, could u please give me a hand?

thanks so much.

pearlgal
 
pearlgal said:
hi, all

anyone has example on how to file a motion to court to ask them grant e-file permission so pro se plaintiff can register to become an efiler.

this is required in north district of california. anyone file in San Jose, san francisco, or oakland, could u please give me a hand?

thanks so much.

pearlgal
In my district Pro Se can file only paper. I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to your question.
 
olegb said:
I would like to thank all you guys for the excellent job you all are doing here explaining and posting your experiences.
I have a couple of trivial questions.
1). When I filed the return of service with court for my Petition case, on the same day I dropped the same document (return of service) at US Attorney's office, however, clerk at USA office told me that it wasn't necessary. I told her that it seems to be a common procedure to make USA aware that all thedefendants been served, she shrugged her shoulders but took papers anyway. In my understanding, this is a rule of thumb to file all the documents with USA as you do with court. Is that right? or am I missing something?
2). I filed my case with CAND court on 11/01/06. Should I contact USA myself or should I wait for them to contact me? What would you guys recommend? And how long I should wait before initiating a contact?
Thank you all in advance.
Hello olegb,
1. I had the same dilemma, when I filed with the court my certificate of service. Because the USA office is in a different town, 80 miles from where I live, I just mailed them a copy of the certificate of service with the copies of the delivery proof. I think that it wasn't necessary, but I thought, better be on the safe side and mail them a copy of everything what I file with the court.
2. I'm thinking of calling today the USA office, about 3-4 weeks after I filed my original complaint. I was wtching daily on PACER my case, hoping that there will be a Notice of Appearance filed from the USA office; nothing yet. But I read on this forum that usually Plaintiff contacts USA office and not vice versa. If you call them too early, the chances are big that nobody was assigned yet to your case. On the other side, you would like to initiate the contact as early as possible, because you can increase your chances that AUSA assigned to your case will initiate the expedited name check (with FBI, USCIS?) and gives them time to complete your case before the 60 days are up. But certainly, there are no official rules about this, do whatever you feel that helps your case the most.
 
fjesus said:
I do not think it is their retaliation. It is simply what they found during a name check. Maybe this is why it took so long for them to find a record on her. If you are absolutely sure she did not register to vote, then I would suggest keeping WOM lawsuit - it should help to resolve the problem faster. This in itself will be "pressure" you are looking for. And get a good atterney to resolve the case in court, in this case you have your day in court and a chance to rebattle.
Thanks for the suggestions!

About the retaliation thing, I first thought the same, but my wife confirmed with the officer that the voter registration record came from USCIS' own internal review, not from FBI's name check results. My wife is not abosultely sure if she ever registered: The year the officer mentioned is the 2nd year of my wife being in the States as a student, knowing pretty much nothing. It's possible that she filled some registration form by mistake (For example, in MA, the voter registration form is on the back of driver's license application form), but she's absolutely sure that she never voted. She said the same thing in her sworn statement that we later mailed to USCIS office.

For now, we're gonna keep the lawsuit; it won't hurt any more than it already did, I think. We'll mail the court and AUSA copies of the sworn statement and the letter from MA Election Division verifying non-existence of my wife's voter record. These will be used as evidence of possible USCIS retaliation if it makes to trial. At the same time, I hope the nice letter that I wrote to AUSA may cause him to push USCIS to drop this stupid move and approve the case... Anyway, we'll definitely try to find a good lawyer if things turn bad and we have to go to court. Since this already happened, there is no way that we'll give up the fight w/o even trying.
 
paz1960 said:
Hello takayuki,
Because you are filing Pro Se, you can't represent your wife or vice versa. There was a WOM case on this forum (in the Southern District of California), where the defendants specifically stated in their motion to dismiss that "as a Pro se plaintiff, Plaintiff may not represent his wife". See attached file. I didn't follow that particular case and I don't know if the judge accepted this argument.
paz:

In this "motion to dismiss" you attached, the AUSA claimed that venue is inappropriate for aliens and quoted many precedents (sounds very convincing). I've read several counter-arguements in this thread on how to deal with this type of attack, however they were all based on naturalization cases which can be nicely defended using 1447. Then how should I argue that non-resident aliens in AOS can legally bring the WOM lawsuit in the district court? --I've went through the first 800 posts and about 1200 posts in the middle, but couldn't find anything like this for AOS cases. Please help. Thanks!
 
Madison04 said:
paz:

In this "motion to dismiss" you attached, the AUSA claimed that venue is inappropriate for aliens and quoted many precedents (sounds very convincing). I've read several counter-arguements in this thread on how to deal with this type of attack, however they were all based on naturalization cases which can be nicely defended using 1447. Then how should I argue that non-resident aliens in AOS can legally bring the WOM lawsuit in the district court? --I've went through the first 800 posts and about 1200 posts in the middle, but couldn't find anything like this for AOS cases. Please help. Thanks!

Hello Madison04,
I don't have an answer for this. Although I read all the postings in this thread before I got enough courage to post here and file a complaint in the court, I don't remember that I saw something how to defend the residency part in the venue for a non-resident alien who applies for AOS. My case is a N-400 application, so I concentrated my legal reseach mainly on the 1447(b) based lawsuits.

If I believe the AUSA's reasoning in the above mentioned lawsuit, AOS applicant could file complaints only in a district court where at least one of the defendants resides (operates the agency). This would be either Washington DC, or more proper, the regional service center, where the original petition was submitted. But I believe that there were enough cases, where the petitioner filed his/her complaint in the district court where (s)he resides. Looks to me that for some reason ASUA in San Diego is playing tough with this argument that a non-resident alien can't claim residency for the purpose of the lawsuit.

Now the practical part, your case. Is any of the defendants (probably the local USCIS director who you are sueing) resides or operates in the district where you filed your complaint? If yes, problem solved. If not, you can hope that your AUSA will not use the same strange argument that Plaintiff can't claim a residency for the purpose of the lawsuit, because she is a non-resident alien. The worst case scenario (which at this point is very unlikely, in my opinion) is that you will need to transfer the lawsuit in the district where the local USCIS office belongs. But I would not worry about this now. Just concentrate on the part to clean up the mistake what USCIS has in their file about the voter's registration.

As you admitted, it is possible that your wife filled out the back part of the driver's licence application and that caused this mess. But I believe that with the letter from the MA officials and your wife's sworn affidavit, you can convince USCIS, or in the worst case, the judge, that this was not intentional, she never voted and it was just a mistake, which should not exclude her from AOS. I like your approach, try by yourself everything what you can do, and hire a lawyer if thisgs get really complicated. That's what I would also do.
 
Thank you very much, paz! I know you're more familiar with 1447(b) cases than WOM, but was hoping you would know something that I missed.

I didn't include the local USCIS director as defendants and he doesn't live in my district anyway. So, I'll focus more on my current problem and hope it won't go that far.
 
Our case is partially approved. What should we do now?

Thanks to this thread. We filed our I485 lawsuite against USCIS and FBI on Oct.5th, 2006. On Nov.1st, my husband's 485 was approved. But my case is unchanged. What should we do now? 60 days we set in the case for USCIS and FBI to solve the problem will be reached soon. Can we extend to a longer time, say, 90 days? what should we do? We called US Attorney. He refered us to USCIS attorney, which looks we could never get connected. We are alwasy directed to his voice message.
 
N 400, it will take another 4 months after name check clearnce

Chicago
Priority Date 2/10/2006
Interview Date 6/8 and passed , only thing to wait is name/background check
Background clearance date: 9/14/2006
since then still wait for oath letter

Today I was told my file was moved to "to-be-processed" category from "waiting for background check" category on 10/20/2006.. I dont understand why it took USCIS 5 weeks to move my file.. cannot believe it

Then I was told today by DO officer I have to wait another 3 months after 10/20. Damn... Just ONE SIMPLE final approval and sending out oath letter take more than 4 month in District Office.
I can not believe it.

Then on the way back to my work, I stopped by Senator's Office and I asked them to help. We will see how fast it will turn out.

GOD BLESS U.S.
 
where should motion goes

thanks anyway paz1960...

does anyone know if i need to file a motion to court, should i simply mail it to court or i need to mail it to the judge assign to my case?

and any format that recommend to follow on the motion?

thanks so much

pearlgal

paz1960 said:
In my district Pro Se can file only paper. I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to your question.
 
Top