UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA DEEPIKNA GONA, Plaintiff, v. Case No. 1:20-cv-3680-RCL UNITED ST A TES CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES, Defendant. MEMORANDUM ORDER Before the Court are defendant United States Citizenship and Immigration Services' (USCIS) motion [15] to stay proceedings or to extend the LCvR 7(n)(l) deadline and the parties' Rule 16(b) report [ 17]. The Court addresses these items in turn. I. STAY OF PROCEEDINGS The agency asks the Court to stay proceedings for sixty days to allow it time to complete adjudication of plaintiff Deepikna Gona's applications. The Court has "has broad discretion to stay proceedings as an incident to its power to control its own docket." Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681, 706 (1997). In exercising that discretion, the Court must "weigh competing interests and maintain an even balance between the court's interests in judicial economy and any possible hardship to the parties." Belize Soc. Dev. Ltd. v. Gov 't of Belize, w, 733 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (quotation marks and citations omitted) (quoting Landis v. N Am. Co., 299 U.S. 248, 254-55 (1936)). The movant bears the burden of establishing its need for a stay. Clinton, 520 U.S. at 708. If a stay may harm another party, the movant "must make out a clear case of hardship or inequity in being required to go forward." Landis v. N Am. Co., 299 U.S. 248, 255 (1936). The Court has no doubt that Ms. Gona suffers harm each day she waits-without the ability to work-for the agency to process her applications. Accordingly, the agency must demonstrate clearly that it would suffer hardship or inequity absent a stay. This it cannot do. The agency's case for a stay is rooted entirely in efficiency concerns; however, engaging in potentially unnecessary litigation for a few weeks does not pose nearly the same hardship as an inability to lawfully work for the same per.iod of time. Thus, the agency is not entitled to a stay. II. EXTENSION OF DEADLINES In the alternative, the agency seeks a three-week extension of its deadline to file an index of the administrative record, as required by LCvR 7(n)( 1). As the agency sought the extension before the deadline lapsed, it must demonstrate good cause to be accorded additional time. Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(b)(l)(A). The agency says it "will need additional time to produce a certified list of the administrative record documents pertaining to the agency actions and inactions that are raised in the Complaint," Def. 's Mem. 4, ECF No. 15-1, but does not explain why it needs ~dditional time. A conclusory statement of unavoidable delay does not constitute good cause to extend a deadline. The agency also says that "because Plaintiff's counsel has filed cases raising essentially identical claims in other judicial districts, the contents of the administrative records must be coordinated among attorneys and agency officials responsible for handling the other cases, as well." Id. The Court struggles to see why parallel suits should slow the process of producing the …
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