On May 5, CAIR-Columbus filed a mandamus lawsuit in federal court in the Southern District of Ohio on behalf of an Iranian green card holder, who had a citizenship application pending for nearly a year and a half without adjudication. He had no criminal history and had been a permanent resident of the United States for over a decade. He also held a doctorate and a post doctorate from elite American universities. No reason was provided to him for the unfair delay of his citizenship application.
“We are happy to announce that since the filing in May, we were able to successfully resolve the delay in adjudication, and our client was officially sworn in as a United States citizen earlier this week,” said Executive Director Jennifer Nimer
Since President Trump took office, CAIR-Columbus attorneys noted that they have seen an increase in delays of all types of immigration applications. Since the beginning of 2017 alone, CAIR-Columbus has filed immigration delay lawsuits for fourteen different plaintiffs. 11 of these lawsuits have already been successfully resolved in favor of Plaintiffs.
“USCIS has been instructed by the Attorney General and the President to ‘rigorously enforce all grounds of inadmissibility and/or denial of immigration benefits’ and we believe this is contributing to USCIS delaying applications in order to look for any reason to deny them, even for minor issues that typically would not result in a denial,” added Nimer. “However what we are seeing with many Muslim applicants is that their cases are just delayed indefinitely with no explanation. Our only option to continue filing lawsuits until USCIS stops this practice of unreasonable and unexplained delays for Muslim applicants.”
CAIR is America’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding. There are three CAIR chapters in Ohio- Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland.