Shankar v. Jaddou

Background

Chethan Jayaram Shankar and Ramya Gundmi sued Ur M. Jaddou, the Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Antony J. Blinken, the Secretary of the United States Department of State. The plaintiffs challenged the agencies’ process for deciding applications to adjust status to lawful permanent resident status.

According to the amended complaint, the agencies’ internal policy required an immigrant visa to be immediately available both when an applicant filed an adjustment-of-status application and when the application was decided. The plaintiffs alleged that this policy conflicted with statutory requirements and congressional intent. They said that visa retrogression left them without an available visa number, so the agencies held their applications in an “indeterminate abeyance” rather than deciding them. They brought claims under the Administrative Procedure Act, alleging unlawful withholding and unreasonable delay of agency action, and sought an order requiring USCIS to decide their applications within 30 days.

The plaintiffs are Indian citizens who reside in the United States. The opinion states that they remained in lawful non-immigrant status and had permission to work in the United States and travel abroad.

Motion to Stay

The defendants moved to stay, or pause, this case while the Ninth Circuit considered an appeal in a related case involving the same process and legal questions. In that related case, the district court had denied a request for a preliminary injunction after finding that the plaintiffs there had little to no likelihood of success on the merits. The appeal was fully briefed, and a hearing was scheduled for March 29, 2023.

The plaintiffs acknowledged that the appeal overlapped with the merits of their case but argued that a stay was not warranted because their case was in its early stages and delay would harm them. They also suggested that the defendants could challenge the court’s jurisdiction while the appeal proceeded.

Court’s Analysis

The court applied the discretionary standard for a stay under Landis and considered the possible harm from a stay, the hardship or inequity of requiring a party to proceed, and whether a stay would promote the orderly and efficient resolution of the case.

The court found that the plaintiffs had not specifically explained what harm they would suffer from a limited stay. It also noted that their asserted hardship depended on assumptions that the stay would substantially delay the case, that they would prevail, and that the defendants would ultimately approve their applications. The court stated that the related appeal involved claims and legal questions identical to those raised in this case and was therefore likely to provide substantial guidance or resolve the claims altogether. The court concluded that a limited stay would promote judicial economy and that the plaintiffs had not plausibly shown that they would suffer damage during the stay.

Disposition

The court GRANTED the defendants’ motion to stay. The parties were directed to notify the court within 48 hours after a decision in the related appeal. The court also stated that it would periodically evaluate whether continuing the stay remained necessary and reasonable.