I don't know if filing a writ of mandamus is a good idea or not since I don't have enough information about it. But I have to strongly disagree with the attitude that you described here as well. Throughout all these years my two cents were almost close to what you mentioned: to work hard and try to maintain a respectable place in this society, while at the same time giving back to a community that welcomed me here during the political distress that I had in my own country. But I wish everything was that simple!
When I applied for the asylum case I was graduate student here. Now after almost 5 years of studying hard and attaining academic merits I became Assistant Professor in a well-ranked university. For the last four years more than 2000 American students in my classes were graduated from college (each year I have approximately 600 hundred students) , while I still don't have any legal status in this country. And this alone complicates my situation here. For example in order to maintain my tenure-track position I am required to participate in conferences, symposiums, and academic events in my field on international level, but I am not able to travel outside of the States. As an artist and educator, over the course of last 3-4 years I had several art shows outside of the states, which is basically part of my academic research and also a requirement for tenure promotion, but unfortunately I couldn't go to my own exhibitions. And there are many other difficulties that I have experienced throughout my "productive" (to use your own word) years here which many of them jeopardized my social status as human being who is simply trying to have a "productive" and successful life.
Now I hope that you see how the positive image that you portrayed there has many crucial limits. And regardless of how hard you try to sustain a good life, those limits could keep you as a "nobody" who doesn't have any social status. How can you say to someone in this situation, whose life is at the edge of permanent loss of hope, to be positive, live your "nobody" life, and don't fight back? I am afraid that sooner or later you will realize that there is a line or limit for those passive attitudes.
I qualified my statement above with:
During my time fighting my case, I met an Iranian man. His case had been pending since 1991. I met him in 2009 = 18 years. I remember fearing that if I miss court dates, etc, my case could fall into a black hole like his. This man's case had been handled by many many judges, his file was more than 5000 pages (voluminous).
I hate waiting. However, as I have grown older, I now select my battles carefully. Fighting USCIS is not one battle I would do. Of course, If I had unlimited time, lots of dollars to pay a team of lawyers, perhaps I could consider it. For the average person, I recommend not fighting USCIS.
Reaching out to the Senate/Congressmen office, checking in at the field office with an infopass, better options to try to push the case forward.
I think that you didn't read the whole story. I use the word 'hate' in a lot of sentences regarding waiting for the case to be resolved. Like you, my life was at a standstill, couldn't travel internationally, etc. I know that most people are in difficult situations, like the Iranian man above. Fighting my case, I met many people in very distressing situations, people who could not work, their EAD clock frozen for years, but had families to support. I met people who couldn't travel internationally to go and bury their dead close families.
Now, in these difficult situations, what is the best course of action? The majority of asylum seekers don't have the resources to find lawyers. For those people, i wrote above that perhaps it's better to do something else instead of suing USCIS: write to congressman/senator, check in with USCIS ombudsman, etc. These are low resource alternatives than fighting USCIS. Doing this, is hardly a passive attitude.
However, if you have the resources, money to pay the lawyers, I wrote that, yep...go ahead and fight USCIS. Like I wrote above, if I had the money, perhaps I would fight USCIS.
Anyway, at the end of the day, we are all in our own situations. It is up to us individually to decide what's best for us. Then again in my comment above, I clearly said that advising people not to fight USCIS was just MY opinion...at the end of the day, people had to do what was BEST for themselves...which meant: if you or anybody else think that fighting USCIS is good for them, they should go right ahead and do it.
