Court Opinion

ID: 9367879
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-02 01:01:21.347194+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:03.895965
License: Public Domain

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
                            FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

 ABDULLAH MEMON, et al.

             Plaintiffs,
        v.
                                                           Civil Action No. 22-0754 (CKK)
 ANTONY J. BLINKEN, in his official
 capacity as Secretary of State,
             Defendant.

                                 MEMORANDUM OPINION
                                    (February 1, 2023)

       As the State Department faces a substantial backlog of visa applications, lawsuits to speed

review have become legion in this jurisdiction. Like most, Plaintiffs in this action ask to cut the

line in front of less fortunate applicants without the means to secure counsel. Because Plaintiffs

plead no plausible facts warranting such inequitable relief, the Court shall GRANT Defendant’s

[10] Motion to Dismiss.

       The Court assumes the reader’s familiarity with the process and statutory background for

visa applications broadly. The Court takes the following facts, to the extent they are plausible, as

true for the purposes of resolving the pending Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. See Ralls Corp.

v. Comm. on Foreign Inv. in U.S., 758 F.3d 296, 315 (D.C. Cir. 2014).     On December 11, 2019,

Plaintiffs Abdullah Memon, Fatimah Memon, Muhammad Tayyab Memon, Javeriah Memon,

and Mariah Memon applied for visas to enter the United States, sponsored by their mother and

lawful permanent resident Plaintiff Khair Memon. Am. Compl. ¶ 3, ECF No. 5. Their

applications have been pending at the State Department’s National Visa Center (“NVC”) since

June 3, 2022. Id. ¶¶ 1-2. To date, the NVC has not forwarded their applications to a consular

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officer for interview(s) at the United States Embassy, Islamabad. See id. ¶ 10. As such, the time

elapsed between submission to now is approximately 34 months.

         Plaintiffs insist that Defendant, therefore, has not adjudicated their applications “within a

reasonable time” as required by the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 555(b) and that

the Court must “compel [that] agency action [as] unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed.”

Id. § 706(1). Plaintiffs also press a claim under the Mandamus Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1361, which is

subject to the same standard applied to claims under § 706(1) of the APA. Skalka v. Kelly, 246 F.

Supp. 3d 147, 152 (D.D.C. 2017).

         Although a court may order an agency “to perform a [mandatory] act, [i.e.,] to take action

upon a matter,” a court may not decide “how [the agency] shall act.” Norton v. S. Utah

Wilderness Alliance, 542 U.S. 55, 62 (2004). Here, there is no real allegation that Defendant has

simply refused to act entirely. Rather, Plaintiffs insist that “Defendant has failed to complete his

duties within a reasonable time.” Am. Compl. at 18.

         To determine whether Plaintiffs have sufficiently alleged that agency action has been

“unreasonably delayed,” the Court applies the familiar “TRAC” factors laid out in

Telecommunications Research & Action Center v. FCC (“TRAC”), 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 this 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 action is unreasonably delayed.

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In re United Mine Workers of Am. Int’l Union, 190 F.3d 545, 549 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (quoting TRAC,

750 F.2d at 80) (internal quotation marks omitted).

        Whether delay is “unreasonable” depends in part upon “the complexity of the task at hand,

the significance (and permanence) of the outcome, and the resources available to the agency.”

Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council, Inc. v. Norton, 336 F.3d 1094, 1102 (D.C. Cir. 2003).

Moreover, the D.C. Circuit has noted the “importance of competing priorities in assessing the

reasonableness of an administrative delay.” Id. (internal citations and quotation marks omitted).

Critically here, the Court is bound by clear Circuit precedent that it may not grant relief where an

“order putting [the petitioner] at the head of the queue [would] simply move[ ] all others back one

space and produce[ ] no net gain.” In re Barr Labs., Inc., 930 F.2d 72, 75 (D.C. Cir. 1991).

                1. TRAC Factors One & Two

        The D.C. Circuit has explained that the first TRAC factor—the time agencies take to make

decisions must be governed by a “rule of reason”—is the “most important,” although it is generally

reviewed with the second TRAC factor as well. In re Core Commc’ns, Inc., 531 F.3d 849, 855

(D.C. Cir. 2008). The inquiry centers on “whether the agency’s response time . . . is governed by

an identifiable rationale.” Ctr. for Sci. in the Pub. Interest v. FDA, 74 F. Supp. 3d 295, 300 (D.D.C.

2014). Because Congress has provided no statutory timeframe indicating how quickly it requires

the State Department to process visa applications, TRAC factor two is inapplicable.

        In general, courts in this jurisdiction have regularly found that the Government applies a

“rule of reason” to the review of visa petitions by adjudicating applications in the order they were

filed. See, e.g., Palakuru v. Renaud, 521 F. Supp. 3d 46, 50 (D.D.C. 2021); Muvvala v. Wolf, No.

20-cv-02423, 2020 WL 5748104, at *3 (D.D.C. Sept. 25, 2020) (“Other federal courts have held

that this first-in, first-out method of adjudication constitutes a ‘rule of reason’ and satisfies the first

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TRAC factor.”). Simply put, the inquiry begins and ends with Defendant’s consistent application

of the “first-in, first-out” methodology.

       That said, courts of this jurisdiction often look the length of delay as a rough yardstick to

determine whether that rule is, in fact, being applied. In this regard, courts in this Circuit have

routinely held that delays somewhat shorter than Plaintiffs’ are not unreasonable. See, e.g.,

Ghadami v. United States Dep’t of Homeland Sec., No. CV 19-00397, 2020 WL 1308376, at *8

(D.D.C. Mar. 19, 2020) (ABJ) (“[M]any courts evaluating similar delays [i.e., 25 months] have

declined to find a two-year period to be unreasonable as a matter of law.”); Bagherian, 442 F.

Supp. 3d at 95 (“[T]he twenty-five-month delay at issue here is not unreasonable as a matter of

law, given the circumstances.”); Skalka v. Kelly, 246 F. Supp. 3d 147, 153-54 (D.D.C. 2017) (RJL)

(two-year delay “does not typically require judicial intervention”). Some courts have held that

delays of even three or more years may be reasonable. See, e.g., Fangfang v. Cissna, 434 F. Supp.

3d 43, 55 (S.D.N.Y. 2020); Yavari v. Pompeo, No. 2:19-cv-02524, 2019 WL 6720995, at *8 (C.D.

Cal. Oct. 10, 2019) (“District courts have generally found that immigration delays in excess of

five, six, seven years are unreasonable, while those between three to five years are often not

unreasonable.”).

       Plaintiffs’ reliance on cases outside of this jurisdiction in which courts have granted relief

on shorter periods of delay misses the point entirely. First of all, the question is not whether a

length of time is “unfair” in some loose, equitable sense, but rather whether the delay is caused by

a “rule of reason” and the resources available to the agency. Norton, 336 F.3d at 1102. Moreover,

even if there has been some breakdown in that system, a court cannot reorder the queue absent

truly exceptional circumstances. See In re Barr Labs., Inc., 930 F.2d at 75. There has been no

breakdown here; Defendant simply continues to face “an extraordinary backlog of visas across the

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world” arising from the shutdown in global services during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

See Tate v. Pompeo, 513 F. Supp. 3d 132, 150 (D.D.C. 2021) (BAH). Although it is unfortunate

that this backlog has coincided with Plaintiffs’ applications, there is nothing about those

circumstances, even as merely pled, that permit judicial intervention.

                 2. TRAC Factor Four

        Next, the Court finds that the fourth TRAC factor—“the effect of expediting delayed action

on agency activities of a higher or competing priority”—weighs against Plaintiffs. TRAC, 750 F.2d

at 80. Reordering the queue does just that. Desai v. USCIS, No. 20-1005, 2021 WL 1110737, at

*7 (D.D.C. Mar. 22, 2021) (CKK); see also, e.g., Palakuru, 521 F. Supp. 3d at 53 (“Granting

[Plaintiff] relief here would advance his petition in front of others similarly situated—with respect

to the availability of visas and investment in a regional center—who filed their petitions earlier.”).

                 3. TRAC Factors Three & Five

        The third and fifth factors are often considered together, and require the Court to consider

Plaintiffs’ interests, health, and welfare. Ghadami, 2020 WL 1308376, at *9. In general, concerns

about separation from family or an inability to supervise an economic investment are insufficient

to weigh in favor of the plaintiff. See, e.g., Desai, 2021 WL 110737 at *7 (economic interests);

Thakker v. Renaud, No. 20-1133 (CKK), 2021 WL 1092269, at *7–8 (D.D.C. Mar. 21, 2021)

(family separation); Palakuru, 521 F. Supp. 3d at 53 (same). “[D]espair over [Plainitffs’]

separation [while] clinging to a final thread of hope that their family will be reunited,” Plaintiff’s

Opp’n at 17, ECF No. 11, is among those interests that do not warrant relief. The Court notes

again that, in light of the current backlog, tens of thousands of families around the world are

currently suffering the exact same injury, many of whom are without the resources to attempt to

skip the line.

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               4. TRAC Factor Six

       The sixth TRAC factor notes that the “Court need not find any impropriety lurking behind

agency lassitude in order to hold the agency action is unreasonably delayed.” Ghadami v. U.S.

Dep’t of Homeland Sec., Civ. A. No. 19-0397 (AJB) 2020 WL 1308376, at *9 (D.D.C. Mar. 10,

2020). No court of this jurisdiction has yet found bad faith on the part of the State Department, 1

and Plaintiffs plead no facts permitting this Court to be the first.

       Because Plaintiffs’ APA claim fails, their mandamus action alleging unreasonable delay

necessarily fails as well. See Kangarloo v. Pompeo, 480 F. Supp. 3d 134, 142 (D.D.C. 2020)

(“Because Plaintiffs’ APA claim fails, mandamus is not available.”).

                                           *       *       *

       For the foregoing reasons, the Court GRANTS Defendant’s [10] Motion to Dismiss and

DISMISS Plaintiff’s [1] Complaint. An appropriate order accompanies this Memorandum

Opinion.

Date: February 1, 2023

                                                                 /s/_______________________
                                                               COLLEEN KOLLAR-KOTELLY
                                                               United States District Judge

1
 E.g., Tate, 513 F. Supp. 3d at 150; Mohammad v. Blinken, 548 F. Supp. 3d 159, 169 (D.D.C.
2021); Xiaobing v. Blinken, 544 F. Supp. 3d 1, 14 (D.D.C. 2021). For brevity’s sake, the Court
need not name scores more cases.
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