Hi again!
I shared the spreadsheet with people's biometrics delays (minus the contact info) and the infographic I made about it with an immigration law advocacy group based in D.C.
They say they were "blown away" by the efforts to collect this information and that they will try to raise this problem through their relationships with USCIS and with the incoming presidential administration.
They also suggested several avenues for litigation:
There is a specific area of the law, the Administrative Procedure Act, that deals with delays. They said the government settles these cases 80-90% of the time by providing the requested relief (ie a biometrics appointment.) People can group together to file multiple "mass actions" rather than a class action. People with the most serious cases can also file on their own and demand a preliminary injunction seeking a court order within 21 days. They also suggested the name and contact info of a lawyer who may be interested in assisting with this (for a fee, of course.)
Anyway, I'm thrilled that this group plans to raise it through their lobbying efforts with USCIS and with the incoming administration. I'm also interested in contacting the lawyer they mentioned to find out more about how to file a "mass action" with multiple people facing similar delays - including what that costs. It could be reasonable if a bunch of people group together and split it, but who knows. Worth asking at least.
I don't want to keep spamming this group, so I will stop posting about this here. Instead, I will put together a mailing list of for those people who are potentially interested in getting involved with a mass action lawsuit -- or are just interested in keeping tabs on legal updates. I suspect the more people the better.
Some people have left me their contact info in the spreadsheet, but if anyone else is interested (including people who don't want to fill out the spreadsheet) can you e-mail me your contact info [biometricdelays@gmail.com](mailto:biometricdelays@gmail.com) (Just your e-mail address is totally fine for now, if you don't want to share your name!)
Also, for disclosure: I'm just a person caught up in these delays like everyone else. I'm not a lawyer or seeking to do anything for my own gain. If you want to email me to get on a message list for updates about this, you are under no obligation to join any lawsuit, or pay any money to me or anyone else. And I will never share your contact info with anyone (lawyers included) unless you give me your explicit permission, which I might ask for sometime in the future if a lawsuit seems like a reasonable thing.
If anyone is interested in filing a lawsuit on their own and not part of a group effort, you can e-mail me too and I can probably get you a bit of information on how to do that.
Lastly, you can still fill out the form about your biometric delays here (It's up to 143 responses!): https://forms.gle/JG9DCDTi1KG7jqqb7
I will update the spreadsheet with the new responses on the weekend. You can find it here: https://bit.ly/33gtdhu
I'll aim to update the infographic as well. You can find that here: https://venngage.net/ps/TIkwc70tiBg/biometrics-delays-infographic
Thanks!
(Also apologies for the cross-post. I'm posting this on a couple reddit groups and some Facebook groups.)
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/immigration/comments/k2cazx/update_on_biometrics_delays_datacollection_effort/