Li v. Jaddou ( 2023 )

Case: 22-50756 Document: 00516749185 Page: 1 Date Filed: 05/12/2023
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
____________ FILED
May 12, 2023
No. 22-50756
Lyle W. Cayce
____________ Clerk
Wei Li; Ya Zhou; Chen Yang; Jie Su; Yuhao Xu; Shu
Wang; Lei Huang; Haixia Xi,
Plaintiffs—Appellants,
versus
Ur M. Jaddou, Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,
Defendant—Appellee.
______________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Texas
USDC No. 1:21-CV-883
______________________________
Before Jones, Willett, and Douglas, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam:*
Two1 noncitizens residing in the United States allege that United
States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has been stalling in
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*
Pursuant to 5th Circuit Rule 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion
should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set
forth in 5th Circuit Rule 47.5.4.
1
Thirty-three plaintiffs originally filed suit. Only two have pending applications as
of this writing. Adjudication renders unreasonable-delay claims moot, so this case only
presents a justiciable controversy as to the two plaintiffs with unadjudicated applications.
Case: 22-50756 Document: 00516749185 Page: 2 Date Filed: 05/12/2023
No. 22-50756
the adjudication of their green-card applications. They ask the court to
compel the agency to take action on their pending applications: grant them,
deny them, it doesn’t matter—just make a decision. According to the
plaintiffs, even though their forms are complete and “adjudication ready,”
the agency has “taken no action” on them. They conclude that the inaction
violates the APA’s command that the agency resolve the matter “within a
reasonable amount of time.” The district court dismissed the case pursuant
to Fed. Rule Civ. Pro. 12(b)(6) and held that the delay was not unreasonable
at the time of plaintiffs’ petition. The plaintiffs appeal.
Courts can “compel agency action unlawfully withheld or
unreasonably delayed.” 5 U.S.C. § 706(1). But “a claim under § 706(1) can
proceed only where a plaintiff asserts that an agency [1] failed to take a discrete
agency action that [2] it is required to take.” Norton v. S. Utah Wilderness All.,
542 U.S. 55, 64, 124 S. Ct. 2373, 2379 (2004) (“SUWA”) (numbering
added). “A court’s authority to compel agency action is limited to instances
where an agency ignored ‘a specific, unequivocal command’ in a federal
statute or binding regulation.” Fort Bend Cnty. v. United States Army Corps
of Engineers, 59 F.4th 180, 197 (5th Cir. 2023) (quoting SUWA, 542 U.S. at
63, 124 S. Ct. at 2379).2 The grant or denial of an I-485 is a “discrete agency
action,” so the only issue is whether USCIS was “required to take” action
on the I-485s by the time the plaintiffs say it should have.
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See Bian v. Clinton, 2010 WL 3633770, at *1 (5th Cir. Sept. 16, 2010) (per curiam) (vacating
earlier opinion on mootness grounds because “the government has adjudicated [the]
application”).
2
The plaintiffs frame their analysis in terms of the so-called TRAC factors, see
Telecomm. Rsch. & Action Ctr. v. FCC, 750 F.2d 70, 79–80 (D.C. Cir. 1984), but this circuit
has never adopted that multi-factor test.
2
Case: 22-50756 Document: 00516749185 Page: 3 Date Filed: 05/12/2023
No. 22-50756
The plaintiffs have failed to state a plausible claim of unreasonable
delay.3 The two non-mooted plaintiffs filed their I-485s on October 28, 2020.
When they filed their amended complaint, the forms had been pending for
just under 12 months. Although Congress enacted an aspirational goal of six
months, 8 U.S.C. § 1571(b) (“180 days”), there is no clear mandate here
such that we can say the USCIS was required to act within six months, or
even within a year. Accordingly, the district court did not reversibly err in
dismissing the claims without prejudice to renewal. See Fort Bend Cnty.,
59 F.4th at 198 (dismissing § 706(1) claim because the statutory “language
does not impose a mandatory duty on the” agency to act within a specific
time frame).
For the foregoing reasons, we find no plausible basis for an undue-
delay claim. The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
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3
This court reviews de novo district court decisions dismissing for failure to state a
claim. The well-known “plausibility” standard articulated in Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly,
550 U.S. 544, 127 S. Ct. 1955 (2007) governs here.
3