I contacted Nadine Wettstein / Dir., Legal Action - AILF: here is my e-mail to her and her response.
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 7:36 AM
To: Nadine Wettstein
Subject: Naturalization of adjusted asylees to LPR status
Dear Ms. Wettstein,
I am one of hundreds of asyless that had their status adjusted to LPR after 5 years of waiting. Recently, the USCIS has been adjusting the status of asyless approved in 2003 and 2004 while others that have been approved in 1999 are still waiting.
For those of us that received their GCs, our cards were backdated one year from the date of approval. Our question is: can we file a lawsuit requesting our LPR status to be effective as of the date asylum was granted? If we carry the same definition as refugees, why are we treated differently?
The USCIS backdates our card to one year from date of adjustment to LPR status as this is the indicated time frame on the notice they send once asylees file for adjustment. If the USCIS messed up and did not handle our cases properly, why should we pay the price? All of us are supposed to be eligible for Naturalization had the USCIS adjusted our cases on time.
Please let us know if we have a case should we decide to file a class lawsuit? if so, can AILF help us?
If it's not hassle, please click the link below. It is an asylee immigration forum. It has all our questions and concerns.
http://www.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?t=206846
Thanks for all your help,
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"Nadine Wettstein" <nwettstein@ailf.org>
Subject: RE: Naturalization of adjusted asylees to LPR status
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 14:11:07 -0500
Thanks for the question. Unfortunately, no, we do not believe such a lawsuit would be successful. We certainly considered this question before we filed and during the time we were working on the Ngwanyia asylee adjustment lawsuit. The refugee and asylee adjustment statutes are different and both are governed by their statutes. Aside from not being able to identify a strong legal argument, we believe that plaintiffs in such a class action would have to quantify how long they had to wait solely because of the former INS delays. We think that's impossible to do. As background, before we filed the lawsuit, the INS was not adjusting the full 10,000 asylees it could every year -- this created part (but only part) of the backlog and is what the lawsuit was about. After we filed the lawsuit, the INS began adjusting the full 10,000 per year (until our settlement and the REAL ID Act last year; since then they have been adjusting more than 10,000). So the backlog the last few years has not been because of the former INS's failings to adjust the number it was permitted to. The backlog was because there were more than 10,000 asylees applying for adjustment each year. But because Congress set the cap at 10,000, everyone else had to wait. Unfortunate, but it was set by Congress (now removed, as I mentioned).
That is our analysis. I hope this is helpful.