Immigration Case # 2 to highlight I.K. – Naturalization application pending for U.S. citizenship
Mr. K., a lawful permanent resident from Pakistan, came to the U.S. in 2001 as an unmarried son of a U.S. citizen based on his father’s Petition for Alien Relative. Soon after his initial trip to the U.S., he returned to Pakistan to marry his current wife. He traveled back and forth over the next several years, all the while growing his family with the addition of seven children. Mr. K. filed his application to become a U.S. citizen in 2006. The application languished while USCIS delayed the process by calling him in over and over again for interviews. Eventually, his case was denied, and he exhausted administrative appeals. He appealed his case to federal court, but USCIS continued to challenge his good moral character. Much of the issue lies with USCIS’s use of CARRP against Mr. K. because of the accusations against his family members of supporting terrorism – one of whom was convicted of such charges in the U.S.
CLCMA became involved in Mr. K.’s case at the previous federal litigation stage. USCIS included an accusation during litigation that Mr. K. was not eligible to immigrate to the U.S. in 2001 because it believed he was actually married, so the visa would not have been available yet. This issue remains unresolved.
However, the federal judge agreed with Mr. K. that there was no evidence that he had supported terrorism, but still found that Mr. K. did not prove he was eligible for citizenship, and USCIS’s denial was upheld. USCIS successfully used its guilt by association tactics to prevent Mr. K. from obtaining U.S. citizenship with his first application.
CLCMA restarted Mr. K.’s quest to become a citizen in November 2019 by filing a new application for naturalization. This application has been pending for nearly two years without a USCIS interview. Since this case is now outside of the current USCIS processing time and CLCMA has exhausted all administrative efforts to resolve this delay, we are set to seek federal court intervention through a Writ of Mandamus. The federal court action is to force USCIS to provide Mr. K. with the required opportunity to present himself before USCIS to review his application. USCIS’s discriminatory actions have kept Mr. K. from visiting his family in Pakistan for over a decade. It is beyond time for USCIS to approve his application for U.S. citizenship to allow him to be together with his wife and children here where he has lived for over 15 years.