An I-485 lawsuit was recently rejected by U.S. Federal Court. A group of I-485 petitioners recently filed suit against USCIS because of what they felt was an unacceptable delay in the processing of their green cards. The petitioner requested injunctive relief asking the Court to order USCIS to adjudicate their pending I-485 Adjustment of Status to permanent residence by October 31, 2021. Citing Bian v. Clinton, 605 F.3d 249, 255 (5th Cir. 2010) the Court was not persuaded that the I-485 applicants possessed “a ‘clear and certain' right to have [their] I-485 application[s] adjusted within [a certain number of days] of [the application's] filing-or that the USCIS has a ‘plainly prescribed' duty to process the application within [a set] time frame.” Consequently, the court denied the plaintiffs’ claim in Kivlekar v. U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Servs., 3:21-cv-2576-B-BN, (N.D. Tex. Oct. 28, 2021). Unfortunately, this decision means if you are experiencing a delay in reference to your I-485 Adjustment of Status filing you will need to be patient. Cases are being approved on a regular and, in most cases, timely manner and many green cards are still being issued without interviews. As a sign that things are looking up, we just had an I-485 approved within 41 days - filed on 9/27/2021 and approved without an interview on 11/7/2021.
