The NVC's own words say your case is ready — fees paid, documents accepted, 'documentarily complete.' What follows for too many families is a silence with no owner: the NVC says it waits on the consulate, the consulate says nothing at all.
The National Visa Center is the staging layer between an approved petition and a consular interview: it collects fees and civil documents, marks the case documentarily complete, and forwards it for scheduling when the post has capacity. That last clause is where cases vanish — "when the post has capacity" is a promise with no date, and completeness confers readiness, not a place in any visible line.
Inquiries and congressional interest sometimes shake a scheduling loose — this firm runs that lane as a practice, not a form letter. When the wait has outrun every explanation, the unreasonable-delay suit names both the scheduling authorities and the silence itself: someone owns the decision to schedule, and a docket number makes them say so.
Two federal statutes turn an unreasonable wait into a lawsuit. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1361, a district court can order a federal officer to perform a duty owed to you; under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706(1), the court can “compel agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed.” Neither statute lets a judge decide the interview date for the agency — the relief is an order to adjudicate, which is usually exactly what a stuck case needs.
Judges in the D.C. Circuit weigh the so-called TRAC factors: how long the delay has actually run, whether Congress supplied a timetable, what the agency says is in the way, and what the delay is costing you. Congress has said processing within 180 days is the expectation for immigration benefits — a sense of Congress, not a deadline, but courts read it as a benchmark. There is no magic month at which a delay becomes actionable; there is a record to build, and most of these cases end with the agency simply doing its job shortly after service.
Already at the consulate? Post-NVC waits are the immigrant-visa delay page's territory — different stage, different defendants, same discipline.
It is the government's own statement that nothing more is needed from you — which makes every month after it easier to characterize. Save the notice; date the wait from it.
Yes — always keep the case demonstrably alive and compliant. The suit argues THEY stopped moving; your file must show you never did.
Documented emergencies sometimes move schedules, and a denied expedite becomes part of the unreasonableness record — the request costs little either way when it is done properly.