(C) Iowa Capital Dispatch
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Des Moines family waits 11 years for decision from immigration officials • Iowa Capital Dispatch [1]
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Date: 2025-07-07
A Des Moines family that has been waiting 11 years for approval of their application for permanent residence is going to court in an effort to force action in the case and is seeking protection from retaliation by federal officials.
The family of Kham Sian Khai of Des Moines is suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, its director Kristi Noem, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and U.S. Citizenship Immigration Services in federal court. The family is seeking a court order to force U.S. CIS to process and approve their application for permanent residence — one of the initial steps in becoming naturalized citizens.
According to the family’s lawsuit, they’ve waited since June 2014 for CIS to process their Form I-485, also called an “Application to Register Permanent Residence.”
The form is a considered a crucial document for individuals already in the U.S. to apply for a green card, granting them lawful permanent resident status. The process allows eligible foreign nationals to transition from “nonimmigrant” status to “permanent resident” status while remaining in the United States.
The lawsuit alleges Khai has been a lawful permanent resident since October 2024, but his spouse and children are still waiting for a decision that would grant them that same status.
According to records filed by the family’s lawyer, their first application for permanent residence was filed 11 years ago in June 2014. A second application was filed eight years ago in May 2017. The lawsuit alleges that while this second application was approved at some level, the family’s permanent-residence case has yet to be finalized with an adjudicated decision in their favor.
The result, the lawsuit claims, is that “Khai’s spouse and children have been waiting for nearly 11 years for their Lawful Permanent Resident cards. Had U.S. CIS timely adjudicated their Form I-485, they could all be naturalized citizens now.”
The lawsuit alleges that over the past 22 years, Bondi and her predecessors at the U.S. Department of Justice have “completely failed in their statutory obligation” to eliminate a backlog of immigration-benefit cases by November 2003.
According to federal records tied to the filing of the lawsuit, it takes about 16 months for a naturalization application to be processed in the Des Moines area – significantly longer than the 9.2 months that is reported nationally.
The Khai family, the lawsuit points out, has been waiting for 96 months – an “intolerable amount of time,” the family asserts — since the second application was filed, which is “10 times the average historical processing time” for the paperwork. In the past eight years, the lawsuit alleges, U.S. CIS has provided the family with no substantive responses or explanations in response to their inquiries about their case.
The lawsuit seeks a court-imposed, date-certain deadline for U.S. CIS to act on the case, as well as attorneys’ fees and a court order protecting the family from retaliation in response to the filing of the case.
The federal government has yet to file a response to the allegations.
Altoona couple says they’ve waited five years
A similar case involves Justin and Victoria Kokeh of Altoona, who are suing Noem, Bondi, and U.S. CIS.
In that case, the Kokehs, who are from Liberia, are seeking a court order to compel the defendants to adjudicate the Kokehs’ two N-400 applications for naturalization, which they say have been unreasonably delayed.
They allege the Des Moines field office typically takes eight months to process such applications. The Altoona couple has waited 58 to 60 months, the lawsuit claims, leading to “irreparable harm.”
The couple is seeking a court order to compel U.S. CIS officials to “perform their duties” as required by law, as well as attorneys’ fees.
Although the couple filed their lawsuit in February 2025, and amended it in May 2025, the federal government has yet to file a response, and was recently granted a third deadline extension for filing an answer.
The Kokeh and Khai cases and are not the only lawsuits Iowans have pending against Noem and immigration officials alleging lengthy and illegal delays in the processing of cases — although access to the information in many immigration cases is tightly restricted by the federal courts.
Some of the cases are filed under seal by the attorneys, and even when the public is granted access to those files, the documents can only be viewed in person at the courthouse where they’ve been filed.
Chandlor Collins, clerk of court for the U.S. Southern District of Iowa, allowed an Iowa Capital Dispatch reporter to read the filings in the Kokeh and Khai cases, but said the federal rules of civil procedure prohibit his office from providing electronic copies or paper printouts of those same records.
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