Bedtime Stories for Public Servants: Unprocessable

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By S. Mohsen Fatemi
December 22, 2025

The number in the corner of Daniel Mercer’s screen looked small until it did not.

470 days pending.

He had learned to read time the way the agency read it: as an integer, a service standard, a risk to throughput. Some files moved like weather, arriving, passing, clearing. Others stayed, fixed in place by a banner that pretended to be neutral.

HOLD — PENDING POLICY GUIDANCE.
No action required.

Arman Kiani’s case should have been ordinary. It was not an adjustment, not a plea, not a request for exception. It was an I-140 National Interest Waiver filed under a category reserved for work the government itself defines as beneficial to the country. The petition was exhaustive. Multiple advanced degrees earned with distinction at U.S. universities. A sustained record of peer-reviewed scholarship cited across disciplines. Research grants awarded competitively and managed to completion. Evidence of work translated beyond academia, reports incorporated into municipal planning documents, advisory memos shaping local policy, testimony summarized in public records. Years of unpaid leadership followed: national committees, editorial boards, professional task forces assembled to repair systems others had abandoned.

Near the end of the file sat a tenure-track assistant professorship beginning in August, public university, public mission, an appointment predicated on the assumption that contributions already recognized by the state could be allowed to continue.

The system did not deny him. It simply refused to proceed.

The travel history tab showed nothing for eight years. No departures. No reentries. An absence so complete it read like discipline. Continuous presence, the file called it.

At lunch, the television in the break room ran a press conference with subtitles.
IMMIGRATION RESTRICTIONS EXTENDED, it said, as if reporting rainfall.

“Not our lane,” Jenna said, stirring coffee. “We just process.”

Daniel returned to his desk and opened Arman’s email. Polite. Brief. Not a plea.

The university’s counsel had written to ask whether they could file an H-1B petition as a bridge. Legally, the answer was yes. Operationally, it meant nothing. Under the December memorandum, adjudications for nationals of certain countries were being held, filed, receipted, then suspended without decision. Premium processing would accept the fee and deliver no result. Start dates would slip. Offers would decay.

Nationality had become a door that could be opened but not crossed.

Daniel typed the template response and erased it. Unable to provide a timeframe. Under review. Thank you for your patience.

The language was clean enough to survive an audit and empty enough to bruise.

His supervisor listened without interruption.
“We cannot improvise,” she said. “Policy is unsettled.”
“So uncertainty is the policy,” Daniel said.
She did not contradict him. “Consistency keeps this place standing.”

Arman came in person the following week. He wore a navy suit that had seen too many interviews. He did not open his folder.

“I am finishing my doctorate,” he said. “They want to hire me. They cannot start the paperwork. My petition is frozen. Is there something missing?”

Daniel kept his voice low, professional.
“You have submitted everything. You meet the requirements.”
“And the timing?”
“I cannot give a timeframe.”

Arman nodded once.
“I have not left the country in eight years,” he said, not as an argument, more like an inventory. “I thought staying would help.”
He did not add that this meant eight years without hugging his mother, without his father’s hand on his back, without his sister’s familiar closeness.

After he left, Daniel drafted a memo. Not a protest. Not a speech. Just a sentence to sit in the file like a splinter.

Applicant meets all statutory requirements. Case held due to unresolved policy guidance related to country of origin. Continued delay produces foreseeable harm.

He saved it, knowing it would change nothing. The banner stayed yellow.
No action required.

That evening, the counter advanced on its own.
471 days pending.

A Pause with the Civic Sage

Daniel: I used to think fairness lived in the rules. That if we applied them evenly, the rest would take care of itself.
Civic Sage: And now?
Daniel: Now I see how much power sits in what we postpone. Nothing feels more official than waiting.
Civic Sage: Waiting looks harmless because it wears the mask of caution. But caution can be a way of avoiding ownership.
Daniel: We are trained to believe stability depends on restraint. Do not move until guidance arrives. Do not be the outlier.
Civic Sage: Institutions survive by avoiding error, not by preventing harm. Those are not the same goal.
Daniel: Everyone I work with is decent. No one wanted the outcome we produced.
Civic Sage: Systems rarely rely on malice. They rely on alignment, people doing reasonable things that add up to something unreasonable.
Daniel: So what is the obligation? To act without authority?
Civic Sage: No. To recognize when authority has gone silent and to ensure the consequences of that silence remain visible.
Daniel: That feels small.
Civic Sage: Small acts are how institutions remember. Silence is how they forget.

Daniel considered that. Public service, he realized, was less about choosing correctly than about refusing to let harm disappear into procedure.

The Loose Ends

Public administration scholarship reminds us that when discretion is withdrawn, ethical responsibility does not vanish, it shifts. In such moments, the work of public service moves beyond individual judgment to institutional design: preserving avenues for review, sustaining transparency, engaging professional and legal accountability and resisting the normalization of indefinite suspension. The lesson here is not to valorize defiance nor to romanticize endurance but to insist that delay itself remains governable. When waiting becomes routine, democratic administration depends on institutions capable of asking not only whether rules were followed but what prolonged inaction has quietly done.

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Author: S. Mohsen Fatemi is a PhD candidate in the School of Public Affairs & Administration at the University of Kansas, where his research examines energy governance, policy, and justice. He is the creator of Bedtime Stories for Public Servants. This narrative series blends storytelling, reflective dialogue, and research-based insights to explore the ethical and emotional dilemmas faced in public service. He can be reached at [email protected]. His website is www.mohsenfatemi.com, and his X/Twitter handle is @MohsenFatemiii.

 

 

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