Abdirahman H. v. Luis R. Borges
Abdirahman H. v. Luis R. Borges, Acting Field Office Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Joseph B. Edlow, Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Washington, D.C.; Markwayne Mullin, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security, Washington, D.C.; and Todd Blanche, Acting Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice
- Eric Tostrud
- 0:25-cv-04613
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 3
Counsel of record per CourtListener. Firm names are approximate.
In Abdirahman H. v. Borges, Judge Tostrud dismissed without prejudice a legal permanent resident's lawsuit seeking a naturalization interview because the petitioner never responded to the government's motion to dismiss.
Legal permanent residents who have applied for U.S. naturalization and whose cases are experiencing administrative delays, particularly those who file suit in federal court to compel action. This ruling also serves as a reminder to all pro se and represented litigants in the District of Minnesota that failing to respond to a motion to dismiss will result in the motion being granted.
What happened
In Abdirahman H. v. Borges (No. 25-cv-4613, D. Minn.), Abdirahman H., a legal permanent resident, applied for U.S. citizenship in June 2023. A scheduled interview was canceled and never rescheduled, so he sued federal immigration officials in December 2025, asking the court to order them to conduct his naturalization interview.
The government filed a motion to dismiss in February 2026. Under the court's local rules, Abdirahman had 21 days to file a written response opposing the motion. He missed that deadline and filed nothing at all.
Judge Eric C. Tostrud ruled that failing to respond to a motion counts as giving it up — a principle consistently applied in this district. On that basis alone, Judge Tostrud granted the government's motion and dismissed the case without prejudice, meaning Abdirahman is not permanently barred from filing again.
The detailed version
- Abdirahman H. v. Luis R. Borges · No. 0:25-cv-04613
- Eric Tostrud
- Apr. 2, 2026
Background
Abdirahman H. is a legal permanent resident of the United States. On June 6, 2023, he submitted an application for naturalization (U.S. citizenship). A naturalization interview was scheduled for November 16, 2023, but was canceled and never rescheduled. On December 12, 2025, Abdirahman filed this lawsuit seeking a court order compelling the respondents — federal immigration and homeland security officials — to conduct his naturalization interview.
The named respondents are Luis R. Borges, Acting Field Office Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in Minneapolis; Joseph B. Edlow, Director of USCIS in Washington, D.C.; Markwayne Mullin, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Todd Blanche, Acting Attorney General of the U.S. Department of Justice. (The court substituted Mullin and Blanche for their predecessors pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 25(d), which automatically substitutes a successor official in a lawsuit against a public officer.)
Procedural History
On February 20, 2026, the respondents filed a motion to dismiss the action. Under District of Minnesota Local Rule 7.1(c)(2), Abdirahman had 21 days to file a response. He did not respond by the deadline and had filed nothing as of the date of this order.
Legal Standard and Ruling
Judge Tostrud applied a well-established principle in the District of Minnesota: a party's failure to respond to a motion constitutes a waiver of opposition to that motion. The court cited multiple prior decisions from the same district holding that non-response to a motion to dismiss is treated as a waiver and grounds for granting the motion.
On that basis, the court granted the respondents' motion to dismiss. The court explicitly ordered the action dismissed without prejudice, meaning Abdirahman is not permanently barred from bringing a new lawsuit on the same subject matter. The court did not reach the substantive merits of the underlying immigration claim — whether the delay in scheduling his naturalization interview was unlawful or what remedy might be available.
Disposition
- Respondents' Motion to Dismiss [ECF No. 4]: GRANTED - This action: DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.