Red Notice or INTERPOL Diffusion and a Delayed Background Check

What a Red Notice and a diffusion are

INTERPOL describes a Red Notice as “a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person”. It is based on an arrest warrant or court order from the requesting country. INTERPOL says a Red Notice “is not an arrest warrant”, that it cannot require any country to arrest a person, and that each member country decides what legal effect a notice has.

A diffusion is a request that a member country's National Central Bureau sends directly to some or all other members, without the General Secretariat issuing a notice. INTERPOL says “Most Notices are for police use only and are not available to the public”. The Red Notice guide explains how to find out whether a notice exists and how to ask for deletion. This page covers only the link to an immigration case.

What USCIS publishes about security checks

USCIS says it “may require you to appear for an interview or provide biometrics (fingerprints, photograph, and/or signature) at any time” to verify identity, obtain additional information and conduct background and security checks. These include “a check of criminal history records maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)”, run “before making a decision” (Form I-485 instructions, edition 09/18/26). The Form I-589 instructions say asylum applicants “are subject to a biometrics check of all appropriate records and other information databases maintained by the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Department of State”.

For naturalization, the Policy Manual says USCIS requests FBI name checks, which search the FBI's Universal Index, and that USCIS “performs other security checks as necessary to review criminal history, eligibility requirements and verify information”. The Manual does not list those other checks.

We did not find a USCIS or State Department page that names INTERPOL or Red Notices as a cause of delay, or that says which databases return a notice or how long review of a match takes. Any statement that a Red Notice “delays” a particular case is therefore an inference. A case-status page does not show the reason a case is pending.

Rules that allow USCIS to hold a case or rely on information the applicant has not seen

Under 8 CFR 103.2(b)(18), USCIS may authorize “withholding adjudication” of a petition or application if it determines “that an investigation has been undertaken involving a matter relating to eligibility or the exercise of discretion”. If the investigation has not been completed within one year of its start, USCIS reviews the matter and decides whether to keep the case in abeyance for six months or until the investigation ends, whichever comes sooner. A hold of this kind is not a finding that the applicant is ineligible, and the rule says nothing about Red Notices.

If USCIS plans to deny a case on “derogatory information” that the applicant does not know about, 8 CFR 103.2(b)(16)(i) says the applicant “shall be advised of this fact and offered an opportunity to rebut the information”. A June 2025 USCIS policy alert added this duty to the Policy Manual. It says USCIS will generally describe the information in a Request for Evidence, a Notice of Intent to Deny or a Notice of Intent to Revoke, and it allows USCIS to withhold information that may be classified, sensitive, privileged or otherwise protected by statute.

Cases at a consulate

A person who applies for an immigrant visa at a U.S. consulate deals with the State Department, not USCIS. The lawsuit steps below are for USCIS cases. The mandamus page lists a delayed visa at a consulate as a different agency with different steps.

Lawful steps, in the order people usually take them

None of these steps promises a decision date. They separate what you can check yourself from what needs a court.

1. Check the posted processing time for your form and office, and the date you filed. A case that is still inside normal processing time makes a weak delay claim.
2. Ask USCIS about the case through a case inquiry or service request. The mandamus page notes that USCIS aims to resolve a service request in 15 business days.
3. Find out whether INTERPOL holds data on you. File an access request with the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL's Files (CCF). Since 26 March 2026 the CCF online portal is the only channel, and the CCF decides access requests within four months of admissibility.
4. If a notice or diffusion is unfounded, ask the CCF for correction or deletion. It decides within nine months of admissibility. The CCF says it is “not competent to act with regard to national files or procedures” or “to assist applicants in immigration matters”, so its decision does not decide the immigration case.
5. Order your own FBI record. The Form I-485 instructions say you may obtain a copy of your own FBI record using the procedures at 28 CFR 16.30 through 16.34. That shows FBI criminal-history information. It is not a CCF request.
6. Consider a federal lawsuit only when the delay has become unreasonable and the earlier steps have not produced a decision.

What a court can and cannot order

A federal district court has jurisdiction over “any action in the nature of mandamus to compel an officer or employee of the United States or any agency thereof to perform a duty owed to the plaintiff” (28 U.S.C. 1361). The Administrative Procedure Act lets a court “compel agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed” (5 U.S.C. 706(1)). In Norton v. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (2004) the Supreme Court held that a claim under section 706(1) “can proceed only where a plaintiff asserts that an agency failed to take a discrete agency action that it is required to take”. A court can therefore order a decision. It does not order an approval.

No statute sets a number of months after which a delay is unreasonable. The government may argue that the law leaves the timing or the decision to its discretion and that a court cannot review it (8 U.S.C. 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii)), and it may point to 8 CFR 103.2(b)(18) as the reason the case is on hold. A court decides those arguments case by case.

Naturalization has its own rule. If USCIS does not decide an application before the end of the 120-day period after the examination, the applicant may ask the district court for a hearing (8 U.S.C. 1447(b)). The regulation says USCIS decides at the initial examination or within 120 days after it (8 CFR 335.3(a)).

A lawsuit does not give or extend immigration status or a work permit. Court fees, the other risks and the usual preparation are on the mandamus page.