Immigrants sue U.S. after paperwork stored in underground caves

A group of immigrants is suing the U.S. government after millions of immigration documents were stored in a network of limestone caves near Kansas City, delaying their application to become citizens.  

The group of people is arguing that the time it takes to get the records stored in the caves into the hands of the officials has caused an “unreasonable delay” in their citizenship applications.

The paper-based immigration files are stored in a Federal Records Centers (FRCs) 60-feet underground in man-made limestone caves in Kansas City. Subtropolis, as the underground business complex is commonly known, has about ten times the square footage of the Mall of America.

TIL about SubTropolis, a 4.5 sq km underground storage and business facility near Kansas City pic.twitter.com/l7r8EoXN4G

— Umbra 🦇 (@umbraviolet) March 18, 2019

The agency responsible for the FRCs, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), claimed that the immigration files were inaccessible after the facility closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It does seem somewhat mind-boggling and shocking that we're still dealing with paper, but we are," says Leslie Dellon, a senior attorney at the American Immigration Council representing the 13 individuals who filed the lawsuit.

In March, NARA said it had reopened its storage facilities and was processing requests for files. However, the agency has failed to prioritize older applications that were waiting for the paperwork to be retrieved, according to the complaint.

The complaint states that all 13 plaintiffs have been stuck in a “stress-filled limbo” for two years while the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) scheduled their citizenship interviews.

According to Dellon, if the group’s history records, known as A-files, are not retrieved and their interviews scheduled, they could lose their opportunity to participate in the upcoming midterm elections or even fail to get citizenship altogether.

"They want to be able to vote in November, and the window's closing," Dellon added. "We felt this is the time to take action and to file suit and to get the government to prioritize these applications and get these people scheduled for interviews."

The lawsuit seeks to require NARA and (USCIS) to prioritize the retrieval of immigration files from the caves.

"It's just very frustrating for these people, whose lives are on hold, and it's just dragging on and on," Dellon added.