Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_07-cv-02349/USCOURTS-cand-4_07-cv-02349-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 28:1361 Petition for Writ of Mandamus

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

JUN LIANG and YUNQIU YUAN,

Plaintiffs,

v.

The Attorney General of the United

States, et al.,

Defendants.

 /

No. C-07-2349 CW

ORDER GRANTING

PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR

SUMMARY JUDGMENT AND

DENYING DEFENDANTS’

CROSS-MOTION FOR

SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Plaintiffs Jun Liang and Yunqiu Yuan move for summary judgment

on their claims for an order compelling Defendants to adjudicate

their applications for adjustment of immigration status. 

Defendants oppose Plaintiffs’ motion and cross-move for summary

judgment. The matter was heard on October 11, 2007. Having

considered the oral argument and all of the papers filed by the

parties, the Court grants Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment

and denies Defendants’ cross-motion for summary judgment.

BACKGROUND

On or about April 20, 2005, Plaintiffs each submitted an I-485

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application with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

(USCIS) seeking adjustment of their immigration status to lawful

permanent resident. Mr. Liang’s request for adjustment is based on

his employment in the United States; Ms. Yuan’s application is

dependent on Mr. Liang’s and cannot be adjudicated until his has

been completed.

Approximately one week after Plaintiffs’ I-485 applications

were received, the USCIS submitted Plaintiffs’ names to the Federal

Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for a background security check. 

This check is performed on all applicants for adjustment of status. 

The FBI completed Ms. Yuan’s name check in May, 2005. It has not

yet completed Mr. Liang’s name check, and the USCIS has not

provided an estimate of when it expects the check will be

completed. Plaintiffs’ applications are currently pending, and

will be adjudicated once the USCIS receives the results of Mr.

Liang’s FBI background check.

LEGAL STANDARD

Summary judgment is properly granted when no genuine and

disputed issues of material fact remain, and when, viewing the

evidence most favorably to the non-moving party, the movant is

clearly entitled to prevail as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ.

P. 56; Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23 (1986);

Eisenberg v. Ins. Co. of N. Am., 815 F.2d 1285, 1288-89 (9th Cir.

1987).

The moving party bears the burden of showing that there is no

material factual dispute. Therefore, the court must regard as true

the opposing party’s evidence, if supported by affidavits or other

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evidentiary material. Celotex, 477 U.S. at 324; Eisenberg, 815

F.2d at 1289. The court must draw all reasonable inferences in

favor of the party against whom summary judgment is sought. 

Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574,

587 (1986); Intel Corp. v. Hartford Accident & Indem. Co., 952 F.2d

1551, 1558 (9th Cir. 1991). 

Where the moving party does not bear the burden of proof on an

issue at trial, the moving party may discharge its burden of

production by either of two methods. Nissan Fire & Marine Ins.

Co., Ltd., v. Fritz Cos., Inc., 210 F.3d 1099, 1106 (9th Cir.

2000). 

The moving party may produce evidence negating an

essential element of the nonmoving party’s case, or,

after suitable discovery, the moving party may show that

the nonmoving party does not have enough evidence of an

essential element of its claim or defense to carry its

ultimate burden of persuasion at trial. 

Id. 

If the moving party discharges its burden by showing an

absence of evidence to support an essential element of a claim or

defense, it is not required to produce evidence showing the absence

of a material fact on such issues, or to support its motion with

evidence negating the non-moving party’s claim. Id.; see also

Lujan v. Nat’l Wildlife Fed’n, 497 U.S. 871, 885 (1990); Bhan v.

NME Hosps., Inc., 929 F.2d 1404, 1409 (9th Cir. 1991). If the

moving party shows an absence of evidence to support the non-moving

party’s case, the burden then shifts to the non-moving party to

produce “specific evidence, through affidavits or admissible

discovery material, to show that the dispute exists.” Bhan, 929

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F.2d at 1409. 

If the moving party discharges its burden by negating an

essential element of the non-moving party’s claim or defense, it

must produce affirmative evidence of such negation. Nissan, 210

F.3d at 1105. If the moving party produces such evidence, the

burden then shifts to the non-moving party to produce specific

evidence to show that a dispute of material fact exists. Id.

Where the moving party bears the burden of proof on an issue

at trial, it must, in order to discharge its burden of showing that

no genuine issue of material fact remains, make a prima facie

showing in support of its position on that issue. UA Local 343 v.

Nor-Cal Plumbing, Inc., 48 F.3d 1465, 1471 (9th Cir. 1994). That

is, the moving party must present evidence that, if uncontroverted

at trial, would entitle it to prevail on that issue. Id.; see also

Int’l Shortstop, Inc. v. Rally’s, Inc., 939 F.2d 1257, 1264-65 (5th

Cir. 1991). Once it has done so, the non-moving party must set

forth specific facts controverting the moving party’s prima facie

case. UA Local 343, 48 F.3d at 1471. The non-moving party’s

“burden of contradicting [the moving party’s] evidence is not

negligible.” Id. This standard does not change merely because

resolution of the relevant issue is “highly fact specific.” Id.

DISCUSSION

I. Proper Parties to This Action

There are five Defendants in this action: the Attorney General

of the United States; Michael Chertoff, Secretary of the U.S.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS); Emilio T. Gonzalez, Director

of the USCIS; Gerard Heinauer, Director of the USCIS’s Nebraska

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Service Center; and Robert Mueller, Director of the FBI. 

Defendants argue that as the head of the DHS, the agency within

which the USCIS is located, Secretary Chertoff is the only

appropriate defendant in this case. 

In support of their argument, Defendants cite only two cases,

Konchitsky v. Chertoff, 2007 WL 2070325 (N.D. Cal.), and Dmitriev

v. Chertoff, 2007 WL 1319533 (N.D. Cal.). As here, both cases

involve challenges to lengthy delays in the USCIS’s processing of

I-485 applications. Contrary to Defendants’ assertions, Kochitsky

actually works against their argument that Secretary Chertoff is

the only proper defendant. In that case, the court allowed the

plaintiff to maintain his claims not only against Secretary

Chertoff, but also against the director of the USCIS and the acting

director of the USCIS’s California Service Center. 2007 WL 2070325

at *7. Equivalent USCIS officers are named as Defendants here.

While Dmitriev did dismiss the claims against the director of

the USCIS, retaining only Secretary Chertoff as a defendant, it did

so with little discussion and without citing any legal authority. 

2007 WL 1319533 at *4. The case is also at odds with the

Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which provides that an action

for judicial review of an agency’s action “may be brought against

the United States, the agency by its official title, or the

appropriate officer.” 5 U.S.C. § 703. Kochitsky and other cases

have permitted actions to go forward against more than one of these

defendants at a time. See, e.g., Dong v. Chertoff, 2007 WL 2601107

(N.D. Cal.); Fu v. Gonzales, 2007 WL 1742376 (N.D. Cal.); see also

Computerware, Inc. v. Knotts, 626 F. Supp. 956, 960 (E.D.N.C. 1986)

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(“When an instrumentality of the United States is the real

defendant, the plaintiff should have the option of naming as

defendant the United States, the agency by its official title,

appropriate officers, or any combination of them.”) (quoting the

House Report on the 1976 amendment of 5 U.S.C. § 703).

Here, Plaintiffs name as Defendants three officials within the

USCIS, the agency with responsibility for acting on their I-485

application, or within the DHS, its parent agency. While the APA

does not specify in detail who the “appropriate officer” is in a

challenge to an agency action, the Court finds that these officers,

as higher-level administrators, fall within the statute’s ambit. 

All of these Defendants are therefore proper parties under the APA. 

While suing more than one of them may serve no practical purpose in

this case, allowing the action to go forward against multiple

instrumentalities of the United States will not prejudice the

government, either. The Court is not persuaded by the arguments in

favor of dismissing any of these parties, and Defendants’ motion is

denied with respect to Secretary Chertoff, Director Gonzalez, and

Director Heinauer.

The analysis is different when it comes to FBI Director Robert

Mueller. Although the FBI is responsible for conducting Mr.

Liang’s background check, it is not housed within the DHS or the

USCIS, which are charged with acting on Plaintiffs’ I-485

applications. Konchitsky noted that courts squarely addressing the

issue have “overwhelmingly concluded” that the APA does not confer

jurisdiction over the FBI in connection with an action for judicial

review of the USCIS’s failure to act on an adjustment of status

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application. 2007 WL 2070325 at *6. Thus, the court dismissed the

claims against Director Mueller while permitting the action to

continue against the DHS and USCIS defendants. The Court finds the

reasoning in Konchitksy persuasive, and dismisses the claims

against Defendant Mueller.

Similarly, although the U.S. Attorney General formerly bore

responsibility for implementing the Immigration and Nationality

Act, this responsibility has resided in the Secretary of the

Department of Homeland Security since March 1, 2003. See 6 U.S.C.

§§ 271(b)(5), 557. Like Director Mueller, the Attorney General has

no statutory obligation or authority to adjudicate Plaintiffs’ I485 petition. Therefore, the claims against the Attorney General

are dismissed as well.

II. The Court’s Power to Compel Defendants to Act

Defendants argue that the Court may not force them to act on

Plaintiffs’ I-485 applications because adjustment of status is a

discretionary, non-discrete action that cannot be compelled under

either the federal mandamus statute or the APA.

The standard for relief under the Mandamus Act and § 706 of

the APA is for all practical purposes the same. R.T. Vanderbilt

Co. v. Babbitt, 113 F.3d 1061, 1065 (9th Cir. 1997). Mandamus is

an extraordinary remedy pursuant to which a court may compel an

officer of the government “to perform a duty owed to the

plaintiff.” 28 U.S.C. § 1361. The Ninth Circuit has held that

mandamus is available when: “(1) the plaintiff’s claim is clear and

certain; (2) the defendant official’s duty is ministerial and so

plainly prescribed as to be free from doubt; and (3) no other

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adequate remedy is available.” Idaho Watersheds Project v. Hahn,

307 F.3d 815, 832 (9th Cir. 2002).

Under § 706(1) of the APA, a court may “compel agency action

unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed.” 5 U.S.C. § 706(1). 

The APA further provides that agencies must conclude matters before

them “within a reasonable time.” 5 U.S.C. § 555(b). In Norton v.

South Utah Wilderness Alliance, 542 U.S. 55, 64 (2004), the Supreme

Court held that a plaintiff states a claim for relief under

§ 706(1) when he “asserts that an agency failed to take a discrete

agency action that it is required to take.”

Defendants correctly note that the Immigration and

Naturalization Act (INA) gives the Secretary of the DHS the

discretion to adjust an applicant’s status, and that neither the

Act nor applicable regulations impose a particular time limit on

his decision. See 8 U.S.C. § 1255(a); 8 C.F.R. § 245 et seq.

However, even though the outcome and procedural underpinnings of an

I-485 adjudication are left to the discretion of the Secretary, a

number of courts in this District have held, and Defendants

apparently acknowledge, that the Secretary does not have the

discretion to refuse to adjudicate the application altogether. See

Toor v. Still, 2007 WL 2028407 at *1 (N.D. Cal.) (collecting

cases). Put simply, “there is a difference between the [USCIS’s]

discretion over how to resolve an application and the [USCIS’s]

discretion over whether it resolves an application.” Singh v.

Still, 470 F. Supp. 2d 1064, 1068 (N.D. Cal. 2007) (emphasis in

original). Plaintiffs do not seek an order mandating that their

status be adjusted; they request only that the Court compel the

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Secretary to discharge his duty to adjudicate their applications

without unreasonable delay.

Similarly, while Defendants argue that the FBI must be allowed

to exercise discretion in determining the way in which it conducts

background checks, granting summary judgment in Plaintiffs’ favor

would not amount to dictating to the FBI how to conduct those

checks. Indeed, the Court has already concluded that Director

Mueller is not a proper party to this action, and any potential

order would bind only the DHS and USCIS Defendants. It would be up

to these Defendants to determine how best to comply with an order

compelling them to fulfill their obligations under the INA.

In two similar actions in which the plaintiffs requested an

order compelling the USCIS to process their I-485 applications

promptly, this Court concluded that issuing such an order would not

impermissibly interfere with the agency’s discretion. Yu v.

Chertoff, 2007 WL 1742850 (N.D. Cal.); Clayton v. Chertoff, 2007 WL

2904049 (N.D. Cal.). In those decisions, the Court rejected

arguments similar to the ones Defendants now make, including that

the Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because adjustment of

status is committed to the DHS Secretary’s discretion as a matter

of law. The Court acknowledged that some courts outside this

District have found that the speed with which the USCIS adjudicates

I-485 applications is discretionary and not subject to judicial

review. Id. at *2. But the Court followed other judges within the

District that have concluded that they could compel the government

to process an unreasonably delayed immigration petition. Id.; see

also, e.g., Quan v. Chertoff, 2007 WL 1655601 (N.D. Cal.); Baker v.

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Still, 2007 WL 1393750 (N.D. Cal.). Defendants cite no precedent

sufficient to persuade the Court to take a different position here

than it did in Yu or Clayton.

Defendants’ point that they are not statutorily obliged to

adhere to any particular time-frame in adjudicating I-485

applications is well-taken. It is true that the USCIS’s discretion

to set the procedures by which it adjudicates these applications

gives it some flexibility in determining the timing of a decision. 

Nonetheless, each adjudication must ultimately be completed within

a reasonable amount of time. To accept Defendants’ argument that

timing is always a matter of discretion beyond the Court’s power to

intervene would enable them to avoid judicial review even of

adjudications that were postponed indefinitely. This would

eviscerate § 706(1) of the APA, which clearly gives the Court the

power to “compel agency action . . . unreasonably delayed.”

As explained in Yu v. Brown, 36 F. Supp. 2d 922, 932 (D.N.M.

1999), “although neither [governing] statute specifies a time by

which an adjudication should be made, we believe that by necessary

implication the adjudication must occur within a reasonable time. 

A contrary position would permit the INS to delay indefinitely. 

Congress could not have intended to authorize potentially

interminable delays.” Accordingly, the Court finds that it has the

authority under the Mandamus Act and the APA to compel Defendants

to adjudicate promptly Plaintiffs’ petitions for adjustment of

status.

Defendants also argue that the Court may not grant Plaintiffs’

requested relief because the action they seek to compel is not

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“discrete.” They assert that Plaintiffs ask the Court to compel

“multiple actions, including whether USCIS requests an expedited

name check, and the pace at which USCIS issues a decision once

Plaintiff Liang’s name check is complete.” This argument is not

persuasive. It is true that multiple steps are involved in the

course of adjudicating an application for adjustment of status. 

Yet just as matter can be split down to the atom, any agency action

can be cast as the sum of smaller parts.

Norton, upon which Defendants exclusively rely in support of

their argument, merely precludes a plaintiff from bringing a “broad

programmatic attack” on an agency under § 706(1) of the APA. 542

U.S. at 64. Plaintiffs do not seek wholesale reform of the process

by which USCIS adjudicates I-485 petitions; they merely seek an

adjudication of their individual applications. Their claim meets

Norton’s requirement that it be directed “against some particular

‘agency action’ that causes [them] harm.” Id. Accordingly, the

Court finds that the action Plaintiffs seek to compel is

sufficiently “discrete” to be subject to review under § 706 of the

APA.

III. Reasonableness of Defendants’ Delay

As discussed above, the Court finds that the USCIS has a nondiscretionary duty to process Plaintiffs’ I-485 applications within

a reasonable amount of time. The question then is whether the

USCIS’s delay of more than two and a half years is reasonable under

the circumstances.

“What constitutes an unreasonable delay in the context of

immigration applications depends to a great extent on the facts of

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the particular case.” Gelfer v. Chertoff, 2007 WL 902382 at *2

(N.D. Cal.) (quoting Yu v. Brown, 36 F. Supp. 2d at 932). Many of

the cases in which summary judgment has been granted in favor of a

plaintiff seeking adjudication of an I-485 application involve

facts similar to those here. In nearly every case, the delay in

processing the application was due to an uncompleted FBI background

check. A number of courts have found that, under normal

circumstances, a delay of approximately two years or longer due to

an uncompleted FBI background check is unreasonable as a matter of

law. See, e.g., Dong, 2007 WL 2601107; Konchitsky, 2007 WL

2070325; Huang v. Chertoff, 2007 WL 1831105 (N.D. Cal.); Liu v.

Chertoff, 2007 WL 2433337 (E.D. Cal.).

In analyzing the reasonableness of the USCIS’s delay, some

courts have considered the factors articulated in

Telecommunications Research and Action Center v. FCC, 750 F.2d 70,

80 (D.C. Cir. 1984):

(1) the time agencies take to make decisions must be

governed by a rule of reason;

(2) where Congress has provided a timetable or other

indication of the speed with which it expects the agency

to proceed in the enabling statute, that statutory scheme

may supply content for the rule of reason;

(3) delays that might be reasonable in the sphere of

economic regulation are less tolerable when human health

and welfare are at stake;

(4) the court should consider the effect of expediting

delayed action on agency activities of a higher or

competing priority;

(5) the court should also take into account the nature

and extent of the interests prejudiced by delay; and

(6) the court need not find any impropriety lurking

behind agency lassitude in order to hold that agency

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action is unreasonably delayed.

(citations and internal quotation marks omitted).

 Defendants assert that the background check is a complex

process that must accommodate an extremely large volume of requests

from the USCIS. Given the backlog of name-check requests and the

FBI’s limited resources, they maintain that the delay of two and a

half years in processing Mr. Liang’s background check is not

unreasonable. There is some validity to these points, and the

Court appreciates that the name-check process is indeed complex and

resource-intensive. But limited resources or not, a common-sense

rule of reason dictates that if the FBI was performing background

checks with due diligence, it would not take two and a half years

to process Mr. Liang’s name. While the Court is sympathetic to the

demands placed on the FBI and the limited ability of the USCIS to

control how the FBI allocates its resources, a lack of sufficient

resources devoted to name-check operations is a matter for the

agencies to take up between themselves or with Congress. The

executive branch must decide for itself how best to meet its

statutory duties; this Court can only decide whether or not those

duties have been met. See Dong, 2007 WL 2601107 at *11 (“[I]t is

not the place of the judicial branch to weigh a plaintiff’s clear

right to administrative action against the agency’s burdens in

complying.”).

Moreover, although there is no Congressionally mandated

timetable for the processing of I-485 applications, Congress has by

statute expressed its view of what a reasonable amount of time is:

“It is the sense of Congress that the processing of an immigration

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benefit application should be completed not later than 180 days

after the initial filing of the application.” 8 U.S.C. § 1571. 

The Court recognizes that this statute was enacted prior to the

events of September 11, 2001, and that the burdens on agencies with

responsibility for immigration matters have since increased. 

Nonetheless, Plaintiffs’ applications have been pending for five

times the length of the period identified by Congress.

The Court also accepts that competing priorities and

considerations of national security rightly factor into an

evaluation of the reasonableness of Defendants’ delay. But again,

these interests can only get Defendants so far; Defendants cannot

simply raise the shield of national security to avoid meaningful

review of their delay. National security may require that a

background check be performed in the first place, but it does not

require that the process drag on for years. Defendants have

provided no particularized facts to suggest that national security

concerns apply with special force to Mr. Liang’s application or

that his name check is otherwise subject to special circumstances. 

Moreover, the USCIS is not without the power to speed up the

adjudication of Plaintiffs’ applications. Indeed, the agency

maintains a policy whereby it may request that the FBI expedite a

particular name check if certain criteria are met. This suggests

that promptly completing the adjudication of Plaintiffs’

applications would neither adversely affect national security nor

be quite the difficult task Defendants portray it to be.

Defendants argue that expediting Mr. Liang’s name check will

prejudice other applicants who have been waiting longer than he -

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in some cases, since as long as December, 2002. While this would

be unfortunate, Defendants’ failure to fulfill their statutory duty

to other applicants has no bearing on whether they have fulfilled

their statutory duty to Plaintiffs, and thus cannot serve as a

basis for denying Plaintiffs’ motion. While Defendants worry that

granting Plaintiffs relief may reward “the more litigious

applicants” or encourage other applicants to file lawsuits,

“perhaps recognizing this possibility will provide the defendants

with adequate incentive to begin processing [I-485] applications in

a lawful and timely fashion in order to obviate the applicants’

need to resort to the courts for redress.” Dong, 2007 WL 2601107

at *12.

Finally, agency decisions that bear on an individual’s

immigration status are matters affecting human welfare, and thus

delays are less tolerable than with other types of decisions. 

Plaintiffs have lived for two and a half years with uncertainty

over their right to remain in the United States. Defendants

attempt to portray the impact of their delay on Plaintiffs as

minimal by stating that Plaintiffs have already been granted the

right to work here and travel abroad. But Defendants do not take

into account the instability that accompanies Plaintiffs’ not

knowing whether they will be allowed to remain in the United States

in the long run. While they are waiting for Defendants’ decision,

they cannot make long-term plans because they must face the

possibility that they will ultimately be forced to return to their

country of origin. Defendants owe Plaintiffs the right to know

after a reasonable amount of time whether they are entitled to

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begin building a life for themselves in this country. Two and a

half years is no petty amount of time to spend waiting.

Taking into account these considerations, the Court adopts the

view of other courts in this district and concludes that

Defendants’ two and a half-year delay is unreasonable as a matter

of law. Accordingly, the Court grants Plaintiffs’ motion for

summary judgment.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiffs’ motion for summary

judgment is GRANTED and Defendants’ cross-motion for summary

judgment is DENIED. Defendants are ordered to request that the FBI

expedite Mr. Liang’s background check and to complete their

adjudication of Plaintiffs’ I-485 applications expeditiously. 

Judgment for Plaintiffs shall enter accordingly. Each party shall

bear its own costs.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

10/30/07

Dated: ________________________ 

CLAUDIA WILKEN

United States District Judge

Case 4:07-cv-02349-CW Document 20 Filed 10/30/07 Page 16 of 16