馃攳
Can The USCIS Ombudsman Help Speed Up My Immigration Case? - YouTube
Channel: unknown
[0]
Can the USCIS Ombudsman help speed up
my immigration case?
[4]
Hi, I'm Jim
[5]
Hacking, immigration lawyer, practicing
law throughout the United States
[7]
out of our offices in Saint Louis,
San Diego and Washington, DC.
[11]
As long time viewers of this channel
know, USCIS,
[15]
the United States Citizenship
and Immigration Service, is the agency
[19]
that's in charge of processing
all immigration benefit applications.
[24]
These applications include naturalization,
green card applications, asylum
[28]
applications, H-1B visas,
and all other kinds of applications
[33]
where people are applying
for an affirmative immigration benefit.
[37]
USCIS is separate from ICE Immigration
Customs Enforcement,
[41]
which is the arm of the government
dedicated to kicking people outside
[45]
the United States.
[46]
USCIS has seen backlogs
grow and grow and grow
[51]
over the past few years,
such that cases that used to take two or
[54]
three months
are now taking nine, ten, 12 months.
[58]
Even over a year,
almost two years for some applications.
[63]
This has led many people to wonder,
what can I do to speed up my case?
[67]
And they stumble upon a phrase
that seems very strange.
[71]
It's a word
that you don't hear all that often,
[73]
and they are intrigued by this.
[74]
They're searching along in Google,
What can I do to speed up my case
[78]
and they ask themselves this question
What is the USCIS Ombudsman?
[84]
The Ombudsman is a strange word.
[85]
It's not a word that we use very often,
but the Ombudsman is outside of USCIS.
[91]
They're supposed to be the people's
watchdog, the people's eyes on USCIS.
[97]
One of the roles of the USCIS
Ombudsman is to look at the data
[101]
and to check on processing
times and issues
[105]
that are coming up
across all kinds of applications at USCIS.
[110]
Think of it as a watchdog,
like somebody going back
[113]
and forth, watching what USCIS is doing
[115]
and figuring out if they're doing things
correctly or incorrectly.
[118]
Every year, USCIS Ombudsman issues
a annual report
[123]
talking about the statistics, talking
about the trends, talking about what
[127]
they've noticed, and that's a big chunk
of what the USCIS Ombudsman does.
[131]
But where people come across the ombudsman
in their search to get their cases
[135]
sped up is the fact that USCIS Ombudsman
[139]
is empowered and authorized to reach out
[142]
to USCIS on behalf of individuals
who are waiting to get their green card,
[148]
waiting to get their citizenship
or for some other immigration benefit.
[152]
The U.S.
[153]
Ombudsman is supposed to advocate for you.
[155]
They're supposed to try to help
you get your case sped up.
[158]
The USCIS
Ombudsman doesn't work inside immigration.
[161]
They work outside immigration,
and their job is to make sure
[166]
that everything is being done
properly in your case.
[169]
Now, here's the problem.
[171]
In the old days,
when cases went relatively quickly,
[175]
it would only require the involvement
of the USCIS Ombudsman in very few cases.
[180]
In other words, the Ombudsman wasn't
that busy because USCIS was generally
[184]
doing their job and processing cases
in a normal and timely fashion.
[189]
But once the delays started
getting very severe and once all cases
[194]
in all categories started taking months
and months longer than they used to,
[199]
the power of the USCIS
Ombudsman stopped working as well.
[203]
In other words, think about it this way.
[206]
If everybody case is delayed
[208]
and everybody's asking the ombudsman
[210]
to expedite or to help expedite
or speed up their case,
[214]
there's really very little
the ombudsman can do.
[217]
They might take an interest,
they might have you fill out a form,
[221]
they might ask you to authorize them
to go reach out to USCIS.
[225]
But at the end of the day,
if everything's delayed
[229]
and if the agency itself isn't devoted
towards speeding things up,
[233]
then the inquiry by the Ombudsman
in one particular case
[237]
is probably not going to move the ball
very far
[241]
if you're a viewer of our immigration
answer show you know this already people
[245]
call the show every single day
complaining about all of their attempts
[248]
to speed up their immigration case.
[250]
And specifically they mention the fact
that they asked
[253]
the USCIS Ombudsman
to assist with their matter.
[257]
But the fact is that
[258]
because these cases are all so backlogged,
the Ombudsman simply can't do anything.
[262]
They recently even issued a report
saying they weren't
[265]
going to make inquiries
on run of the mill delay cases.
[269]
So that means that the only thing
that works, the only chance you have,
[273]
it's not the ombudsman, it's
not getting a member of Congress involved.
[276]
It's filing a federal mandamus lawsuit
against USCIS.
[281]
To our knowledge, it's the only thing
that really works consistently.
[285]
It doesn't work in every single case,
but it works in a lot of cases.
[288]
So far, our office has filed over
1200 mandamus actions
[292]
many, many, many of which took place
after our clients first
[297]
reach out to the USCIS Ombudsman
and found out that
[300]
the Ombudsman couldn't really do anything
to move their case along.
[303]
So at the end of the day,
you are certainly free to go
[307]
talk to the Ombudsman.
[308]
You are certainly free to ask them
to make an inquiry on your case,
[312]
but you should not get your hopes up.
[313]
You should not start planning to get
that immigration benefit anytime soon.
[317]
In the vast majority of cases,
the Ombudsman is powerless to get USCIS
[321]
to do their job
[323]
and just like they tell you to keep on
[324]
waiting, the agency basically tells
the ombudsman, sorry,
[328]
there are a lot of people in line
ahead of them.
[330]
COVID, COVID, COVID, backlog,
backlog, backlog.
[333]
Sorry about that.
[334]
And nothing actually happens.
[336]
The only time anything happens is
when you sue them.
[338]
So if you have questions about whether
or not the USCIS Ombudsman can help you,
[342]
or if you have a story for me
about how the USCIS Ombudsman did
[345]
help you, I'd love to hear about it,
[347]
but those stories are sadly few
and far between.
[349]
You can always give us a call
at 314-961-8200.
[353]
You can email us
[email protected].
[356]
Don't forget to join our immigrant home
Facebook group.
[359]
It's called Immigrant Home and you can
find us by searching for it in Facebook.
[362]
We'd love to have you in there.
We have over 8000 members.
[365]
We have tons of people joining every day
where they're trading immigration
[368]
information,
talking about processing times,
[370]
talking about delays, talking about
their frustrations with the Ombudsman.
[374]
And then we also have
our immigration answers show,
[377]
which you can find
if you subscribe to our YouTube channel
[380]
or if you join that immigrant home
Facebook group.
[382]
Thanks a lot and have a great day.
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage