USCA4 Appeal: 21-1207 Doc: 36 Filed: 04/11/2023 Pg: 1 of 13 UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 21-1207 KARTHIKEYAN SAKTHIVEL; ARAVIND BABU KADIYALA; BISWAJIT MOHAPATRA; RAJENDRA SHARMA; SRINIVASA RAO MADUGULA; MUJEEB MOHAMMED; AZMATHULLA MOHAMMED; ASHOK KUMAR JAYAKUMAR; DIVYA BATHULA; CHETAN JOSHI; SREENISARGA GADDE; VENKATA SITA RAMAANJANEYUL BASATI; SRI LAKSHMI ALLURI; ARPIT KHURASWAR; RAHUL PATIL; MAMTA GUPTA; VENKATA SATYA VISHNU VARDHAN PARCHA, Plaintiffs – Appellants, v. UR M. JADDOU, Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Defendant – Appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Columbia. Cameron McGowan Currie, Senior District Judge. (3:18-cv-03194-CMC) Argued: December 6, 2022 Decided: April 11, 2023 Before KING and AGEE, Circuit Judges, and Henry E. HUDSON, Senior United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation. Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion. ARGUED: Bradley Bruce Banias, BANIAS LAW LLC, Charleston, South Carolina, for Appellants. Vanessa Molina, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, USCA4 Appeal: 21-1207 Doc: 36 Filed: 04/11/2023 Pg: 2 of 13 Washington, D.C., for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Brian M. Boynton, Acting Assistant Attorney General, William C. Peachey, Director, Glenn M. Girdharry, Assistant Director, Aaron S. Goldsmith, Senior Litigation Counsel, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellees. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. 2 USCA4 Appeal: 21-1207 Doc: 36 Filed: 04/11/2023 Pg: 3 of 13 PER CURIAM: All seventeen Appellants in this case are beneficiaries of the category of nonimmigrant visas defined in 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b) (“H-1B Visas”) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1101 et seq. Appellants are challenging the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (“USCIS”) revocation of their I-129 petitions for nonimmigrant worker status (“Initial H-1B Petitions”) through which Appellants first became H-1B Visa beneficiaries. Some Appellants’ Initial H-1B Petitions were revoked by USCIS automatically, while other Appellants’ petitions were revoked through mailed revocation notices that were never received. Appellants collectively brought their action in the District Court for the District of South Carolina seeking to set aside USCIS’ revocation of their Initial H-1B Petitions as improper. Appellants initially alleged that USCIS had revoked each of their Initial H-1B Petitions through mailed revocation notices. After USCIS informed three of the Appellants that their Initial H-1B Petitions were revoked automatically, Appellants attempted to amend their Complaint and separate the action into two cases—one involving Appellants whose petitions were automatically revoked and one involving Appellants whose petitions were revoked by mailed revocation notices. Ultimately, the district court ruled that Appellants did not meet the permissive joinder requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20(a) and dismissed mailed-revocation Appellants from the case. Only the case involving the automatic-revocation Appellants continued before the district court. 3 USCA4 Appeal: 21-1207 Doc: 36 Filed: 04/11/2023 Pg: 4 of 13 The remaining parties then cross motioned for summary judgment and the district court granted summary judgment for USCIS because the automatic-revocation Appellants …
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