The Writ of Mandamus is a powerful judicial tool for relieving the delayed adjudication of a pending application. When an unreasonable delay occurs, or government agencies do not perform their duties in a reasonable timeframe, the only truly effective remedy is to file a writ of mandamus with the federal district court to compel them to act on time.
The preparation of your case starts once you retain our practicing attorney to file a mandamus lawsuit. We submit the writ of mandamus electronically to the District Court using a website called PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records). There is usually no hearing in mandamus lawsuits. Cases are generally resolved before the Court decides on your case. After submitting the complaint, the relevant government agencies (named “defendants” in the lawsuit) are notified and start working on your case. Once the lawsuit is submitted in court, the defendants have 60 days to respond to the complaint. In many of the cases, we get movement within those 60 days. Things start happening: interviews get scheduled, or the visa gets issued. Sometimes, you get called in for a second or your first interview after the lawsuit is filed.
In some instances, the Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) contacts us if there is any specific update on the case, and we respond accordingly. The update could be to schedule your visa interview after a certain period of time, or it could be to diligently work towards completing adjudication of your case following the visa interview. Sometimes, AUSA asks for an extension of 30 or 60 days; we decide to consent to it if that means that they will finally decide the case. However, we consent to it only after communicating with the client. Even if the AUSA provides the extension, it still significantly cuts the waiting time for your application.
In rare cases, the defendants file a “Motion To Dismiss” before their deadline(s) to respond exceeds. Filing a motion to dismiss your case doesn’t necessarily mean that the case will be dismissed; it simply means that the defendants formally requested the court to dismiss your case. After the defendants filed the motion to dismiss, we get two weeks (14 days) to submit a “Response” to the Motion, and after that, the defendants get one week to “Reply” to the Plaintiff’s response to the opposition to the motion to dismiss the case. Once we have filed the response to the opposition and the defendants have responded to that, the case is now in the hands of the court to decide. But in a mandamus lawsuit, the court almost never provides a decision, as the case gets resolved before that. On average, a writ of mandamus can yield results within 30-60 days, with a maximum processing time of 3-5 months. In our experience, most of our clients received their remedy within the mentioned processing time.
We submit a voluntary dismissal in your case upon receiving a decision, whether your visa has been issued, you have been scheduled for an interview, or your long-pending visa application or petition has been adjudicated. Submitting the voluntary dismissal is mandatory, as the Plaintiff is bound to submit it to the court once the designated agency has granted the relief and the claims are no longer relevant.
In our experience, we have filed over 226 cases in the federal courts with a success rate of 99.6%. Filing a mandamus lawsuit works and provides you with the relief sought. We have had success suing the Department of State, and the government does issue/grant visas or schedule the interview. In most cases, USCIS/DOS takes action on the mandamus lawsuit shortly after filing it. Sometimes, the government decides to fight, but it happens on a case-by-case basis.
On the other hand, some judges are receptive to the plight of the aggrieved immigrant, while others are reluctant to do so. However, we do not guarantee that the visa or petition will be approved or the interview will be scheduled. Still, we have filed mandamus lawsuits on behalf of 226+ clients, and our clients have been immensely pleased with the positive results and overall service.
