Sandara v. Jaddou

Background

Madhubabu Sandara and Saraswathi Subramanyam brought claims under the Administrative Procedure Act against Ur M. Jaddou, the Director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Antony Blinken, the Secretary of the United States Department of State. The plaintiffs alleged that USCIS and the State Department used policies that prevented final decisions on applications to adjust status when an immigrant visa was available when the application was filed but was no longer immediately available when the agencies considered approval. They also alleged that USCIS unreasonably delayed deciding their applications.

The plaintiffs alleged that they filed applications for adjustment to lawful permanent resident status in November 2020 in the employment-based second preference category. Their applications remained pending. They asked the court to declare the alleged policies unlawful, stop the agencies from applying them to the plaintiffs, and require USCIS to decide their applications within 30 days.

Motion to Stay

The defendants moved to stay, or pause, the case while the Ninth Circuit considered a related appeal in Babaria v. Blinken. The appeal had been consolidated with appeals in two other cases and involved claims and legal theories concerning the same alleged agency policies. The plaintiffs did not dispute that the appeal presented the same legal issues, but argued that the factors governing a stay weighed against pausing their case.

The court applied the factors for a discretionary stay: possible harm from granting the stay, hardship from requiring a party to continue litigating, and whether a stay would promote the orderly resolution of the case. The court found that the hardship to both sides was a neutral factor. It concluded that the stay would not affect USCIS’s processing of the plaintiffs’ pending applications, their priority dates, or their current lawful status. The court also found that the plaintiffs had not provided specific evidence of the particular harm they would suffer from the stay.

Ruling

Judge Donna Ryu granted the defendants’ motion to stay. The court reasoned that the Ninth Circuit appeal involved identical legal issues, was likely to provide substantial guidance or resolve the plaintiffs’ claims, could narrow the issues remaining before the district court, and would conserve judicial resources while reducing the risk of inconsistent rulings.

The court administratively closed the case for docketing purposes. It stated that either party could reopen the case by filing a notice within 14 days after the Ninth Circuit issued its mandate in the consolidated Babaria appeal. The order did not decide the merits of the plaintiffs’ Administrative Procedure Act claims.