Brat1

As most of you will know on here, we have had a denial of our Permanent Residency application. Long story short, the USCIS have said that they revoked the original approval of the I-140, back in March 2009. The Attorney is stating that he never received any RFE, Notice of Intent to Revoke, or indeed a Revocation notice. The new Attorney has been asking for a copy of the original documents, either asking for a RFE, and the denial notice itself. They have never been able to obtain it. My husband filed a request under the FOIA to get a copy of these documents, so that we have the information required, as to why it was revoked. So......

My question is, how long do you have to wait. It states that their average processing time for a Track One request for alien is 19 business days, and for non-alien is 26 days. We are sitting at 42 days since they documented our request. We originally were something like 1200 in a queue of 1800 requests, and week by week we moved up around 2-300 places. We have now been sitting, according to their online status check, at number 2 of 4 track one requests What do I do, just sit and wait, e-mail them to see what the hold up is (as there is an email address that you can send a request to), or give up at this point. I don't know if anyone has been through something similar, but any help would be great at this point. Just for information, we have done everything that has been suggested, an Infopass appointment, hiring our own Attorney to make sure everything is being done as it should etc. At this point, I just want to see the original denial notice, so that we can decide who was originally at fault and to ensure that the same thing doesn't happen again, as now we are having to go through the whole I-140 process from scratch. I am now

ian-mstm

Has your attorney suggested filing a Writ of Mandamus to force the government to respond?

Ian

Brat1

I honestly don't know Ian, I haven't asked that question since we have just been sitting waiting. Excuse my ignorance, but what is a Writ of Mandamus??

Nutmegger

So sorry the nightmare continues, Brat1. Is the congressperson you were in touch with aware that you are now being screwed around on a freedom of information act request? Perhaps that is something she may be able to apply the cattle prod to.

Noorah101

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandamus

Rene

sir_eccles

I don't know if this is the sort of situation where going to your local congresscritter might help? Oh I see you have maybe already done that?

ian-mstm

Rene's given you a link but, in a nutshell, a Mandamus is a court order served on the government - which, in turn, forces the government to take action on a specific grievance. IOW, it compels the government to respond... which, it seems, is what you want them to do.

Ian

Brat1

Thanks for the quick responses as usual guys. Yes, we have been to our local Immigration Liaison for Congress, although I haven't gone back to her regarding this. Thanks for the link and that sounds like what the next step has to be, on order to get them to respond, because they just don't. I am just wondering though, how much time to give them, because I know that the "average days" for them to respond is just a guideline. I think I need to go back to our Attorney and ask the question and then proceed from there.

Such a complicated process of events, and so time consuming... a lesson learned - never assume that everything will be plain sailing or a certainty in the process of Immigration. So frustrating when you think that you've done everything that's been asked, only to find out that things were never what you thought they were. Oh well, onwards and upwards. Thanks everyone, much appreciated

S Folinsky

<sigh> I am not the attorney involved here. Brat1 has a complicated FUBAR which is way beyond the scope of the lay posters here. The lawyer should be allowed some breathing room IMHO.

There are several questions that pop up from what is posted and that is causing me confusion. One of which is whether or not the ALIEN can obtain a copy of the documentation related to the visa petition.

BTW, on FOIA, an action to produce production is not a "mandamus" but is allowed within the provisions of FOIA itself. Believe it or not, the Government has ten days to respond before an action to compel can be filed. However, the right to file in Federal Court is not the same as being being obligated to produce or say why they won't. Also, there is a habit of referring to what is actually a "Privacy Act" request as being under FOIA. It can be confusing.

It should be noted that the regulations provide a person the opportunity to examine the record upon which an adverse decision is based. This is not FOIA or Privacy Act.

An interesting case [with a Posner concurrence] is Ghaly v INS. [There are two cases with the same name, one from the 7th and the other from the 9th. This is the one from the 7th.]. The majority and the concurrence discuss the obligation of the minions of the Dark Forces to provide the record underlying the decision. In Ghaly's case, production would have made no difference, so no prejudice.

Brat1

Thanks Folinsky. I'm assuming that we can ask, as they sent us a letter with a case number, and from what I have read, they only send that once they have established that we can, but maybe I'm reading that information wrong. I basically was wanting to know, if in anyone else's opinion, we should just sit and wait...... how long do we wait for a response? If either my husband or me, or our Attorney, or the employers Attorney cannot get this one document that has been requested, do the Government have the right to just ignore us? What if there has been a mistake on their part and the document doesn't exist. I find it very strange that we moved up the queue in a normal pace, and now we have been sitting in position 2 of only 4 requests in track one for nearly 2 weeks.... or maybe I'm just cynical given the lack of response from the USCIS since this all came to light

S Folinsky

I was not kidding when I said this is a FUBAR. The office where I am "of counsel" has a few cases where I've been given a file in a copy-paper box to review. Sometimes, just figuring out WTF happened can take me a week or ten days.

Orangepants

My OH filed an FOIA request in 2010 and it took 7 weeks for the disc to arrive. I didn't know there was a way to track the requests and I cant remember what our expectations were at the time.

So sorry you are still going through all this... must be exhausting..

Brat1

Thanks Orangepants, we filed, or they received ours on March 11th, and I think the online status check is relatively new. Exhausting doesn't even come close, it's been a living nightmare since October, but we just have to work through it, nothing else we can do at this stage

Brat1

Okay

After sending an e-mail the other day, asking for an update on our FOIA request, I just received a reply:

"Please check the FOIA control number; this number doesn’t come up on our system."

I have been checking this number on their system for the last 8 weeks I am far from a cynical person, but there just seems to be something not right somewhere, at every turn. Back to the Attorney I go then.....

sir_eccles

Optimistically, I might suggest it is no longer in their system because maybe they have actually dealt with it?