The evidence file a delay case needs

The single most common weakness in a delay case is not the length of the delay. It is that nobody wrote anything down until two years in, by which point the most persuasive evidence no longer exists in any retrievable form.

The five things to keep

1. Dated processing-time captures. A screenshot of the agency's posted processing time for that form, classification and service centre, taken monthly. This is the baseline the whole claim measures against, and published figures change without a history. Once the month has passed, that data is gone.

2. Filing history. Receipt notices, RFEs and responses, biometrics notices, everything with a date on it. Straightforward, and routinely incomplete because it lives in three inboxes.

3. Escalation correspondence. Every service request, Ombudsman submission and congressional inquiry, with the date sent and whatever came back — including nothing. An unanswered inquiry is evidence.

4. Comparative evidence. Anything indicating that later-filed cases in the same category are being decided. Harder to obtain and disproportionately valuable, because it converts 'slow' into 'out of sequence'.

5. A harm statement, updated. Dated, specific, and revised as circumstances change: which extension is due when, which authorization expires, which child turns how old, which project is blocked.

Why contemporaneous matters

A harm statement written after the decision to litigate reads like advocacy. The same points recorded month by month as they arose read like a record, because that is what they are.

The processing-time captures are the clearest case. There is no archive of what a government processing-time page said eighteen months ago. Either somebody screenshotted it or the evidence does not exist. It takes about ninety seconds a month and it is the difference between an assertion and a demonstration.

Making it happen

The reason this does not get done is that no one owns it. The fix is small.

• Add a monthly recurring task to whoever runs the immigration tracker
• One folder per case, with five named subfolders matching the list above
• Trigger the process automatically when a case passes the posted window, rather than when someone gets frustrated
• Review quarterly, at which point cases that have quietly crossed a threshold become visible

The same file also supplies most of the business case, which means the work is done once and used twice.

Questions

What if the file was never kept?

Cases are still brought. They are simply weaker, and the harm statement has to carry more weight. Start keeping it from today regardless; a partial record beats none.

Should the employee keep their own copy?

Yes. Employees change jobs, and the beneficiary is usually a plaintiff. A file that only exists in a company system is a file that can become unavailable.

General information, not legal advice. Rules and processing practice change; verify against the agency's own published figures and take advice on your own facts.