1

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

HAITIAN BRIDGE ALLIANCE, et 

al., 

Plaintiffs,

v.

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF 

THE UNITED STATES, et al.,

Defendants.

Civ. Action No. 21-3317 (EGS)

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Plaintiffs—the California-based nonprofit Haitian Bridge 

Alliance and eleven Haitian asylum seekers expelled from the 

United States—bring this lawsuit against various federal 

government officials and departments1 (“Defendants” or “the 

1 Defendants include Joseph Biden, President of the United 

States, in his official capacity; Alejandro J. Mayorkas, 

Secretary of Homeland Security, in his official capacity; the 

Department of Homeland Security; Chris Magnus, Commissioner for 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in his official capacity; 

William A. Ferrara, Executive Assistant Commissioner of U.S. 

Customs and Border Protection Office of Field Operations, in his 

official capacity; Raul Ortiz, Chief of U.S. Border Patrol, in 

his official capacity; U.S. Customs and Border Protection; Tae 

D. Johnson, Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs 

Enforcement, in his official capacity; U.S. Immigration and 

Customs Enforcement; Xavier Becerra, Secretary of Health and 

Human Services, in his official capacity; Department of Health 

and Human Services; Rochelle P. Walensky, Director of Centers 

for Disease Control and Prevention, in her official capacity; 

and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. See Compl., ECF 

No. 1. 
2

government”) alleging violations of the Due Process Clause of 

the Fifth Amendment; the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”); 

the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”); the Foreign Affairs 

Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 (“FARRA”); and the Public 

Health Service Act of 1944. See Compl., ECF No. 1.2 Plaintiffs 

seek to bring their claims on behalf of a class of similarly 

situated persons defined as “all Haitian, or presumed Haitian, 

individuals who (1) sought access to the U.S. asylum process in 

or around the CBP Encampment near the Del Rio Port of Entry 

between September 9 and 24, 2021, and (2) were denied access to 

the U.S. asylum process.” Id. ¶ 271.

Upon filing, Plaintiffs designated this lawsuit as related 

to Huisha-Huisha v. Gaynor, No. 21-cv-100 (D.D.C. 2021), and 

P.J.E.S. v. Wolf, No. 20-cv-2245 (D.D.C. 2020), requesting that 

the case be assigned to this Court under Local Civil Rule 

40.5(a). See Notice Related Case, ECF No. 7. Defendants object 

to the designation of this case as related to the two other 

cases, and request that this Court transfer this action to the 

Calendar and Case Management Committee for reassignment. Joint 

Status Report (“JSR”), ECF No. 20 at 11-12. 

2 When citing to electronic filings throughout this Memorandum 

Opinion the Court cites to the ECF header page number not the 

page number of the filed document.
3

Upon careful consideration of the parties’ arguments, the 

applicable law, and the entire record, the Court SUSTAINS

Defendants’ objection. 

Generally, all new cases are randomly assigned. See LCvR 

40.3(a). Random assignment “ensure[s] greater public confidence 

in the integrity of the judicial process[,] . . . guarantees 

fair and equal distribution of cases to all judges, avoids 

public perception or appearance of favoritism in assignments, 

and reduces opportunities for judge-shopping.” Tripp v. Exec.

Off. of President, 196 F.R.D. 201, 202 (D.D.C. 2000). However, 

the local rules provide for an exception for “related cases” in 

the interest of judicial economy. See LCvR 40.5. Civil cases are 

considered “related” when “the earliest is still pending on the 

merits in the District Court,” and they: (1) “relate to common 

property,” (2) “involve common issues of fact,” (3) “grow out of 

the same event or transaction,” or (4) “involve the validity or 

infringement of the same patent.” LCvR 40.5(a)(3).

“The party requesting the related-case designation bears 

the burden of showing that the cases are related under Local

Civil Rule 40.5.” Singh v. McConville, 187 F. Supp. 3d 152, 155

(D.D.C. 2016). This burden is “heavy,” as “[d]eviating from 

th[e] foundational principle” of random assignment “is 

appropriate only if the relationship between the . . . cases is 

certain.” Dakota Rural Action v. Dep’t of Agric., No. 18-cv-2852 
4

(BAH), 2019 WL 1440134, at *1 (D.D.C. Apr. 1, 2019). If a party 

objects to the designation that cases are related, “the matter 

shall be determined by the judge to whom the case is assigned.” 

See LCvR 40.5(c)(3).

Here, Plaintiffs argue that this case is related to HuishaHuisha and P.J.E.S. because all three cases are class actions 

that arise out of the “same event or transaction” and involve 

multiple “common issues of fact.” JSR, ECF No. 20 at 2 (quoting 

LCvR 40.5(a)(3)). According to Plaintiffs, (1) “[e]ach of these 

three cases challenges on a classwide basis the same Title 42 

Process: the unprecedented use of public health powers to 

justify the immediate expulsion of asylum seekers without any of 

the procedural protections guaranteed by Congress”; (2) “[e]ach 

case concerns whether class members were afforded the safeguards 

expressly provided by the [INA] before class members were 

expelled under the Title 42 Process”; (3) “[e]ach seeks the same 

relief of enjoining the continued application of the Title 42 

Process against class members”; and (4) “each case will require 

this Court to assess the same administrative record underlying 

the Title 42 Process.” JSR, ECF No. 20 at 1-2. Defendants 

concede that all three cases challenge, to some degree, the 

lawfulness of the Title 42 Process, but argue that this fact is 

not enough to make the cases related. Id. at 17. Defendants 

further argue that this case is factually distinct from Huisha-
5

Huisha and P.J.E.S. Id. Whereas Huisha-Huisha concerned a class 

of families subject to expulsion pursuant to Title 42, and 

P.J.E.S. involved a putative class of minors who were subject to 

expulsion pursuant to Title 42, here, in contrast, the “putative 

class definition does not reference Title 42 explicitly and is 

focused instead on a certain population (Haitian migrants) 

crossing at a certain location (Del Rio) near a certain CBP 

‘encampment’ and at a certain time (between September 9 and 24, 

2021) that were allegedly denied access to the asylum process 

and expelled.” Id. at 16.

The Court agrees with Defendants. First, with regard to 

whether this case arises out of the “same event or transaction,” 

the fact that Plaintiffs’ Complaint includes a challenge to the 

Title 42 Process is not sufficient in this instance to override 

the general rule of random case assignment. Generally, there 

must be a “substantial overlap” among cases for them to be 

properly deemed related. See, e.g., Autumn Journey Hospice, Inc. 

v. Sebelius, 753 F. Supp. 2d 135, 140 (D.D.C. 2010) (finding

related where “[e]ach case . . . presents identical issues for 

resolution” (emphasis added)); see also Comm. on the Judiciary 

v. McGahn, 391 F. Supp. 3d 116, 121-22 (D.D.C. 2019) (“The 

principle behind the related case rule is that in certain 

instances, the strong presumption of random case assignment is 

outweighed by the interests of judicial efficiency in narrow 
6

circumstances, such as when virtually identical and highly 

overlapping issues of fact are likely to be resolved in two 

cases.” (emphasis added)). Here, although each of the three 

cases at issue involve claims challenging the lawfulness of the 

Title 42 Process, they do so to different degrees. For example, 

both Huisha-Huisha and P.J.E.S. involve substantively identical 

claims that are targeted at the Title 42 Process, with the 

exception that P.J.E.S. includes one additional claim under the 

Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. See P.J.E.S. 

Compl., ECF No. 1; Huisha-Huisha Second Am. Compl., ECF No. 131. 

In this action, on the other hand, only two of eight claims 

facially challenge the Title 42 Process; the majority of 

Plaintiffs’ Complaint instead concerns the so-called “Haitian 

Deterrence Policy,” which Plaintiffs allege the government 

separately developed to apply the Title 42 Process solely to 

Haitians. E.g., Compl., ECF No. 1 ¶ 8. Indeed, Plaintiffs’ 

Complaint alleges that the government “departed from [the Title 

42 Process] specifically for Haitian families in Del Rio.” Id. ¶

173; see Keepseagle v. Glickman, 194 F.R.D. 1, 3 (D.D.C. 2000) 

(finding, in dicta, that two cases did not arise out of common 

events or transactions, though plaintiffs had claimed they were 

“injured by the same policies of defendant and in the same 

manner” as plaintiffs in the other case); Dale v. Exec. Off. of 

President, 121 F. Supp. 2d 35, 37 (D.D.C. 2000) (finding cases 
7

were not related though “all of the[] cases involved the denial 

of a Privacy Act request”). Moreover, although Plaintiffs argue 

that the Court will be required to “assess the same 

administrative record underlying the Title 42 Process” as in 

Huisha-Huisha and P.J.E.S., only one of Plaintiffs’ eight claims 

challenges the Title 42 process as arbitrary and capricious 

agency action. See generally Compl., ECF No. 1.

The cases Plaintiffs cite in their favor are 

distinguishable for the same reasons. For example, in Autumn 

Journey Hospice, Inc., because the two cases at issue presented 

“identical issues for resolution,” the district court found that 

“there [was] substantial overlap in both the factual 

underpinning and the legal matters in dispute in each of the[] . 

. . cases.” 753 F. Supp. 2d at 140 (emphasis added). And in 

Singh, the plaintiffs in both cases at issue challenged the same 

governmental regulations “on the same grounds.” 187 F. Supp. 3d 

152. As explained above, here, “Title 42 is but one policy being 

challenged in a case that is focused on the treatment of Haitian 

migrants specifically.” JSR, ECF No. 20 at 17. Therefore, though

all three cases involve the Title 42 Process to some extent, the 

Court does not find that they all grow out of the same event or 

transaction “on the whole.” See G.Y.J.P. v. Wolf, No. 20-cv-1511 

(TNM), 2020 WL 4192490, at *2 (D.D.C. July 21, 2020) (“Though 

the goal of each Plaintiff is the same—to challenge Defendants’ 
8

Title 42 Process—sharing the same litigation purpose is not 

enough to make the cases related.”); Lucas v. Barreto, No. 04-

1262 (EGS), 2005 WL 607923, at *3 (D.D.C. Mar. 16, 2005) 

(concluding that two cases did not “on the whole, ‘grow out of 

the same event or transaction,’” even though an agency’s 

“Performance Review Process” served as a “hook” between them).

Second, the Court is not persuaded that the three cases at 

issue involve sufficient “common issues of fact.” LCvR 

40.5(a)(3)(ii). Plaintiffs argue that the three cases “raise 

common factual questions because all three cases fundamentally 

revolve around the same central allegations: the process by 

which Defendants adopted and implemented the Title 42 Process, 

and the denial of plaintiffs’ rights under the INA when 

subjected to the Title 42 Process.” JSR, ECF No. 20 at 7. But as 

stated above, the Court does not agree that the “central 

allegations” in this case revolve around the Title 42 Process; 

rather, the core of this case challenges the Haitian Deterrence 

Policy and how it was applied to Haitian asylum seekers at the 

Del Rio Encampment. 
9

For the foregoing reasons, the Court SUSTAINS the 

government’s objection. This case shall be transferred to the 

Calendar and Case Management Committee for random reassignment. 

LCvR 40.5(c)(1).

SO ORDERED.

Signed: Emmet G. Sullivan

United States District Judge

June 14, 2022