The complaint is the visible part; the machinery after it is where these cases are actually decided. Here is the sequence, stripped of mystique.
Manage the one real risk: a compelled decision is a decision, not an approval. Filing a delay suit on a weak underlying case accelerates a weak answer — which is why the merits get reviewed before the complaint gets drafted, every time.
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 your case 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.
Venue matters. These suits are filed in federal district court, and the District of Columbia — where the agencies live — is very often a proper venue. That is this firm's home court.
Service triggers a standard federal answer period for suits against agencies — a matter of weeks, on the docket, extendable only by asking. Compare that to the years your service requests bought.
Almost never in a delay suit — these resolve on paper. Your role was supplying the record; the briefing is ours.
Then the fight changes venue, with a written decision to attack — see the denials-and-appeals guides. A reasoned denial can be litigated; silence cannot.