Garmai R. v. Petrovich
- Katherine Menendez
- 0:24-cv-04125
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 20
In Garmai R. v. Petrovich, Judge Menendez denied government officials’ motion to dismiss a challenge to her son’s visa classification.
Garmai R. and her son Jackson F., whose immigrant-visa application was reclassified from F2A to F1; the defendant government officials’ motion to dismiss was denied.
What happened
Garmai R. sued government officials over the reclassification of her son Jackson F.’s immigrant-visa application from the category for minor children of lawful permanent residents to the category for adult children of U.S. citizens. She argued that the Child Status Protection Act kept Jackson under 21 for immigration purposes and that he should be treated as an immediate relative after she became a U.S. citizen.
The officials argued that Garmai R. lacked standing, that the agencies had already made a final decision, that a rule limiting review of consular visa decisions barred the case, and that the Child Status Protection Act did not support her interpretation. The court found that she alleged a concrete hardship from the longer wait to reunite with her son and that her complaint plausibly stated claims under the Administrative Procedure Act and the Mandamus Act.
Judge Menendez denied the motion to dismiss. She did not finally resolve the statute’s interpretation, but she declined to find Garmai R.’s position plainly wrong at this stage and found the alleged visa “refusal” was not necessarily final because the agency requested more information. She also noted concerns about whether the complaint’s “unreasonable delay” theory was the best fit.
The detailed version
- Garmai R. v. Petrovich · No. 0:24-cv-04125
- Katherine Menendez
- June 16, 2025
Background
Garmai R. filed a Form I-130 petition for her son, Jackson F., on April 13, 2020, while she was a lawful permanent resident. Jackson was 17 when the petition was filed. USCIS approved the petition on April 26, 2023, after it had been pending for 1,108 days, when Jackson was 20. The National Visa Center initially classified the application as F2A, the category for unmarried minor children of lawful permanent residents.
Garmai R. became a naturalized U.S. citizen on September 21, 2023. By then, Jackson was 21. After a visa interview at the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia, Liberia, Jackson received a document called a “refusal” sheet, but the agency also requested additional information. On October 1, 2024, the Embassy notified him that his visa category had changed from F2A to F1, the category for adult sons and daughters of U.S. citizens.
Garmai R. alleged that the Child Status Protection Act required the agencies to subtract the 1,108 days that the I-130 petition was pending when calculating Jackson’s age. She alleged that his adjusted age was 17 years, 10 months, and 22 days, and that he therefore remained eligible for treatment as an immediate relative of a U.S. citizen. She brought claims under the Administrative Procedure Act and the Mandamus Act, seeking a declaration that the Child Status Protection Act applied and an order requiring the officials to perform their legal duties.
Arguments on the Motion to Dismiss
The defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), which challenges subject-matter jurisdiction, and Rule 12(b)(6), which challenges whether the complaint states a legally sufficient claim. They argued that Garmai R. lacked standing because the alleged injury concerned Jackson rather than her own legal rights. They also argued that the agency had made a final decision, that the doctrine of consular nonreviewability barred review of the visa matter, and that the complaint depended on an incorrect interpretation of the Child Status Protection Act.
Standing
The court denied the jurisdictional challenge. It held that Garmai R. adequately alleged an injury to herself because she has a bona fide relationship with Jackson, he seeks to enter the United States, and the alleged misclassification would cause her concrete hardship by extending the time before they could reunite. The court distinguished the question of standing from whether Garmai R. could ultimately prevail on a constitutional claim.
Finality and Consular Review
The court also denied dismissal based on finality and consular nonreviewability. It concluded that, as alleged, the “refusal” following Jackson’s interview was not necessarily a final decision because the agency continued to request and consider additional evidence. The doctrine of consular nonreviewability generally limits review of final visa decisions, but the court concluded that it did not create a procedural bar to the alleged challenge while the application remained unresolved.
The court noted, however, that Garmai R.’s characterization of the case as an Administrative Procedure Act claim based on unreasonably delayed agency action might be an imperfect fit. The alleged delay resulted from the agency’s reclassification decision, rather than from the agency simply failing to act. The court observed that an alternative claim challenging the agency’s action as arbitrary, capricious, or contrary to law might be a better fit, but it had not been adequately alleged in the complaint as then drafted. The court left the parties to decide what next steps, if any, were appropriate.
Child Status Protection Act
The court declined to dismiss the complaint on the ground that Garmai R.’s statutory interpretation was plainly incorrect. Without conducting a full statutory analysis at the motion-to-dismiss stage, it found persuasive appellate decisions explaining why “age” in the relevant provision may refer to age calculated under the Child Status Protection Act’s adjustment formula, rather than only to the beneficiary’s biological age. The court therefore declined to find that the legal theory underlying the complaint was fatally flawed.
Disposition
The court ordered that the defendants’ Motion to Dismiss, docket entry 5, was denied. The opinion did not finally decide whether Jackson must receive immediate-relative treatment or whether the agencies’ interpretation ultimately violated the law.
Read the full 20-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.