AMERICAN IMMIGRATION LAW FOUNDATION PREPARES TO SUE INS OVER PROCESSING DELAYS

The American Immigration Law Foundation (AILF) is working with the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) to prepare a suit against the INS on behalf of people who have suffered harm because of the current delays in INS processing.  Currently both groups are collecting information on potential plaintiffs for the suit.

People whose applications for benefits have not been processed within a reasonable time have already filed numerous individual suits against the INS.  This proposed suit would probably be filed as a class action, meaning that there would be only a few named plaintiff, but that any relief awarded would also be granted to those who could show they were in a situation similar to the named plaintiffs.

It is quite possible that such a suit would not go to trial, because often the threat of a lawsuit is enough to bring sufficient pressure on the INS to adjudicate a pending petition.  However, even if the case did go to trial and resulted in a verdict favorable to those with applications pending before the INS, it may not result in any improvement in processing times. This is because the INS is constrained by personnel and financial considerations and it is not clear that litigation will bring order to the current chaos at the ISN.  And as we have seen with the processing of citizenship applications, concentration on one type of petition invariably causes the processing of other types to suffer. 

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