Case: 22-50756 Document: 00516749185 Page: 1 Date Filed: 05/12/2023 United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit ____________ FILED May 12, 2023 No. 22-50756 Lyle W. Cayce ____________ Clerk Wei Li; Ya Zhou; Chen Yang; Jie Su; Yuhao Xu; Shu Wang; Lei Huang; Haixia Xi, Plaintiffs—Appellants, versus Ur M. Jaddou, Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Defendant—Appellee. ______________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas USDC No. 1:21-CV-883 ______________________________ Before Jones, Willett, and Douglas, Circuit Judges. Per Curiam:* Two1 noncitizens residing in the United States allege that United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has been stalling in _____________________ * Pursuant to 5th Circuit Rule 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5th Circuit Rule 47.5.4. 1 Thirty-three plaintiffs originally filed suit. Only two have pending applications as of this writing. Adjudication renders unreasonable-delay claims moot, so this case only presents a justiciable controversy as to the two plaintiffs with unadjudicated applications. Case: 22-50756 Document: 00516749185 Page: 2 Date Filed: 05/12/2023 No. 22-50756 the adjudication of their green-card applications. They ask the court to compel the agency to take action on their pending applications: grant them, deny them, it doesn’t matter—just make a decision. According to the plaintiffs, even though their forms are complete and “adjudication ready,” the agency has “taken no action” on them. They conclude that the inaction violates the APA’s command that the agency resolve the matter “within a reasonable amount of time.” The district court dismissed the case pursuant to Fed. Rule Civ. Pro. 12(b)(6) and held that the delay was not unreasonable at the time of plaintiffs’ petition. The plaintiffs appeal. Courts can “compel agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed.” 5 U.S.C. § 706(1). But “a claim under § 706(1) can proceed only where a plaintiff asserts that an agency [1] failed to take a discrete agency action that [2] it is required to take.” Norton v. S. Utah Wilderness All., 542 U.S. 55, 64, 124 S. Ct. 2373, 2379 (2004) (“SUWA”) (numbering added). “A court’s authority to compel agency action is limited to instances where an agency ignored ‘a specific, unequivocal command’ in a federal statute or binding regulation.” Fort Bend Cnty. v. United States Army Corps of Engineers, 59 F.4th 180, 197 (5th Cir. 2023) (quoting SUWA, 542 U.S. at 63, 124 S. Ct. at 2379).2 The grant or denial of an I-485 is a “discrete agency action,” so the only issue is whether USCIS was “required to take” action on the I-485s by the time the plaintiffs say it should have. _____________________ See Bian v. Clinton, 2010 WL 3633770, at *1 (5th Cir. Sept. 16, 2010) (per curiam) (vacating earlier opinion on mootness grounds because “the government has adjudicated [the] application”). 2 The plaintiffs frame their analysis in terms of the so-called TRAC factors, see Telecomm. Rsch. & Action …
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