A Short Pause of the Citizenship Clinic

We are taking a short break in accepting new cases for the Citizenship Clinic. Here’s why—and how long.

We are pausing all new intakes for the Citizenship Clinic until May 19, 2025. A few reasons have prompted us to make this decision:

1. Capacity. We currently have over 115 active cases, some complicated and many straightforward. With so many current cases, we need to work to reduce the overall caseload by concentrating on current cases, moving them toward filing and completion with USCIS. A roughly two week pause will help us considerably in reducing the current caseload, leaving us more time to take on new cases once the pause is over. In general, we receive 2-3 new intakes every day, a rate that we cannot continue to maintain while also keeping up with current cases. During the pause, we will also work to build additional internal resources to make it easier to handle a consistently large caseload.
   
2. Redacted FOIA Requests. Until very recently, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests have been the easiest and most effective tool to track down USCIS immigration records. In the last month, however, USCIS has implemented new policies that have turned the FOIA office into a genuine redaction factory. In files released to the clinic and its clients in the last two weeks, USCIS has redacted and removed documents from most of the files, leaving most files with a majority of blank or heavily redacted documents, even removing entirely an adoptee’s own foreign adoption decree. The redactions are so extensive that the records released are generally useless. As such, we need to challenge these redactions while at the same time working on alternative ways to obtain necessary records. The pause will help us work toward those goals.
   
3. Newly Revised Paper and Online Forms. Two days ago, USCIS released new forms for the N-600 (Application for a Certificate of Citizenship) and the N-565 (Application for a Replacement Certificate), the two forms the clinic and its clients use the most. We are analyzing the changes in the forms to determine what we need to do to collecting information and documents from clients. The pause in new cases will allow us to complete current cases using the new forms, which in turn will provide real-time information on the changes that clients and other intercountry adoptees must know. During the pause on new cases will also update our community with the changes in the forms and in the documents the applications require.

We hope you understand the need to suspend acceptance of new cases for exactly 18 days. During that time we will keep you and our clients informed about what we are seeing and what you may need to know to secure or obtain US citizenship. Hang in there. We’ll be back soon enough.

Finally, if you believe we are providing a meaningful (and free) service to the adoptee community, consider donating to keep it all running. Every single donation helps, no matter how big or small. Thank you!