There is no way to predict that. They give priority to new cases over old cases (under the LIFO system – last in, first out) and your case is not new. For this reason, I would not expect an interview any time soon. At least some office ha resumed interviewing people in the same room as the officers. This will increase capacity and so may start to speed things up. Even so, it could be a while. You can try to expedite your case – I wrote about that on March 30, 2017. Some offices are good about that, and so maybe it is worth a try. Take care, Jason

Hello Jason, I applied for asylum in in 05/29/2020 biometrics in July 2021. Since then my status says that next step is an interview. According to your experience how long does it take to schedule an interview? I also applied for EAD 42 days ago in Texas Center. Asylum office in Bethpage, NY Does this going to take a long time?
Thank you in advance for your response

Thanks Jason.

I think it is wise to fire a lawyer who is not helping you. Sometimes, my clients think I have “done nothing” even though we actually did a lot of work (which I email them). To them, since they did not get a decision or interview, I did not do anything. But lawyers are generally paid for their efforts, not for the results, and so as long as the lawyer is making an effort to help, they earn their fees. In your case, it seems that did not happen, and so you are probably better off with a different lawyer or doing the case yourself. Take care, Jason

I think asylum attorneys are a mixed bad – some are excellent; some are crooks, and some are in-between. When I first started, they tended to be worse than they are now. To me, the primary barrier to trying to expedite is that the case must be complete. It is not easy to get this work done given all our obligations. But once it is done, making an expedite request only takes a few minutes (longer for some offices, that have extra hoops to jump through). I do think a lawyer may not want to try to expedite where they think it will not work. That is reasonable, but my issue with it is that there are really no rules about expediting. So you can try even with a weak reason and no evidence. It is less likely to work, but you never know. Take care, Jason

I got the emergency travel document, took them 2 days, apparently it was the first time to process such a case.

Thank you Jason and anyone who helped in any way.

I also fired my attorney and told her to refund my fees of 4500$. I did not care about money though and she refunded half of it back to me. Even though she never did anything in my case but she kept half of the fees, I did not argue with her since I did not care about money.

I did all the work in my case even filed for my own EAD 4 times in last 6 years. The only thing she did was to attach the attorney form to the asylum application and mail it to uscis.

Jason,

I have dealt with or should I say talked to at least 6/7 ASYLUM attorneys. If any attorney who thinks that 7/8 years is not long enough for his clients to expedite their interview then GOD help his clients.

I am very sad to say this but most of the people on this forum already know this that majority of the Asylum attorneys in USA ask you to pay the full fees upfront and then ignore you for the next 5/6 years without ever working on strengthening either your ASYLUM case or giving you the correct advice.

In my case I did all the work myself, gathered all the evidence like (Court records/police reports from home country, witness affidavits, DHS reports and all other evidence), wrote all the statements.

Thank you so much for your quick reply.

You should be able to leave with no problem, but you will most likely not be able to return, as the departure will be considered a deportation. You might have your lawyer (or yourself) file an emergency motion for Voluntary Departure. If this is approved, it will at least avoid you having a removal order and may make it easier for you to return to the US some day. If you do not have a lawyer, you can try to call DHS (the prosecutor) and tell them what you want to do. Maybe they would be willing to file the motion. You can find their contact info if you follow the link under Resources called DHS Office of the Chief Counsel. Take care, Jason