BPR sues Trump Administration over New Form I-864
In response to the latest unnecessary obstacle that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has placed in the way of immigrants attempting to follow a legal pathway to the American dream, Benach Pitney Reilly LLP today joined the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) in suing the Trump Administration.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court here in the District of Columbia, claims that by debuting a new I-864, Affidavit of Support Under Section 213A of the INA with no notice or grace period, USCIS violated the process required for federal agency actions under the Administrative Procedure Act. Form I-864 is a critical form in many immigration cases, because it is an affidavit that legally binds a sponsor to financially support an immigrant, and it is required in nearly every family-based immigration case.
The form is 12 pages long with 18 pages of instructions and the Office of Management and Budget estimates it takes five hours and 49 minutes to complete. This does not include all the time required to gather the underlying information, which typically include tax returns, pay stubs, and proof of assets.
Debuting a new Form I-864 effective immediately—coupled with no grace period during which the agency would accept the previous version and no guidance about how forms that have already been mailed to USCIS will be treated—has required immigrants and their attorneys all over the country to repeat work they had already completed. As the complaint explains, “those affidavits already signed, assembled, and ready for mail… have to be redone or be subject to rejection immediately upon delivery.”
“USCIS’s failure to provide notice or guidance prior to their unannounced actions has caused hours of work and cost substantial resources of Benach Pitney Reilly,” said partner Sarah Pitney in an affidavit accompanying the lawsuit. “We have identified thirteen (13) petitions and applications that either will be likely rejected, or will have to be redone and reassembled in order to comply with the new form edition. In addition to the unreasonable burden of having to redo applications, there is also a substantial amount of time spent addressing client fears and panic.”
AILA Benefits Litigation Attorney Jennifer Coberly stated, “USCIS has arbitrarily and capriciously failed to provide adequate notice of these revised forms, or even a grace period for implementation. Thousands of forms were potentially already in the mail on August 31 or prepared for filing. This abrupt change puts AILA and our members in an impossible situation. AILA has reached out to USCIS requesting a grace period be applied. To date, they have declined to do so, resulting in this litigation.”
In addition to the huge administrative and emotional burden, the legal consequences of this form change will likely prove monumental for many immigrants. Using the old form will result in rejection on arrival, which means the loss of a filing date, which can have permanent and devastating consequences to an immigration case. Moreover, the new form includes substantive changes—including to how the government collects and verifies a sponsor’s financial information—without any notice and without providing the public any opportunity to weigh in on this new requirement.
We are zealous advocates for our clients and refuse to sit silently while an Administration that claims to support legal immigration continually makes that process longer, more difficult, and more expensive. We will keep our readers appraised as this lawsuit progresses.