Summer 2026
Mandamus Decisions

Twenty-Six Months in § 221(g) Administrative Processing Held Not Unreasonable

A U.S.-citizen husband petitioned for his Iranian wife, who was interviewed at the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan in April 2024, refused under INA § 221(g), and left in administrative processing with no further action for over two years. Judge Mehta dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) without reaching the government’s no-duty and consular-nonreviewability arguments, resolving the case entirely on the TRAC factors at the pleading stage.

On factors one and two, the court reaffirmed that 8 U.S.C. § 1571(b)’s 180-day “sense of Congress” is aspirational under Da Costa v. Immigration Investor Program Office, 80 F.4th 330 (D.C. Cir. 2023), and that the FAM’s 30/60-day guidance supplies no yardstick either. Applying the Sarlak v. Pompeo case-law spectrum — delays of three to five years “often not unreasonable” in the District — the court placed 26 months comfortably “within the range of reasonableness.” Factor four (line-jumping) did the rest, with the court quoting Khazaei v. Blinken: any relief would be a “judicial reordering” of the State Department’s queue.

One quietly useful holding survives the loss: the court rejected the government’s standing attack on the National Vetting Center defendant, holding that an allegation that the NVC contributes to administrative-processing delay is enough at the pleading stage for traceability and redressability.

EB-5: Jurisdiction Preserved, Merits Denied — the RIA’s 120-Day Goal Is Not a Deadline

A Mexican investor with $800,000 in a high-unemployment-area regional center project waited nearly two years for adjudication of his Form I-526E — against the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act’s fee-setting goal of 120 days. Judge Bates dismissed, but the opinion’s jurisdictional holding is the part practitioners should keep.

The government argued that 8 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(5)(E)(ii)’s “may process petitions in a manner and order established by the Secretary” language strips jurisdiction over pacing claims under § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii), citing Bouarfa v. Mayorkas and iTech v. Renaud. The court disagreed: unlike the triple-discretion revocation statute in Bouarfa, a single “may” without a “deems”-type standard does not clearly bar review — and the court expressly criticized Mukkavilli and Aiteliyev for conflating the cause-of-action question with subject-matter jurisdiction. The opinion also engages the Supreme Court’s brand-new decision in Mullin v. Doe (U.S. June 25, 2026) on the scope of a “determination.”

On the merits, however, the court found no plausible allegation of unreasonable delay: USCIS applies a rule of reason to I-526E processing, the 120-day figure is a fee-setting goal rather than a congressional timetable, and relief would simply let the plaintiff jump the queue.

Karimova Applied Again: No Duty to Act After a § 221(g) Refusal

A U.S. citizen sued over her husband’s I-130 immigrant visa, refused under § 221(g) at the Montreal consulate in December 2024 and parked in administrative processing since. Judge Leon granted dismissal on the narrowest and most dangerous ground for consular-delay plaintiffs: after a § 221(g) refusal there is no clear, nondiscretionary duty to take any further action at all.

The court leaned on the D.C. Circuit’s unpublished decision in Karimova v. Abate (D.C. Cir. July 24, 2024): 5 U.S.C. § 555(b) imposes no “crystal-clear legal duty” on consular officers to re-adjudicate. Plaintiff’s attempts to source a duty in 8 U.S.C. § 1202(b), § 1153(a), and 22 C.F.R. § 42.21(a) fared no better, with the court collecting the growing post-Karimova line — Yaghoubnezhad, Ibrahim, Rezvani, Pour, and this February’s Alnaddaf v. Rubio.

Notably, Judge Leon acknowledged the intra-district split over whether Karimova binds, and declined to decide — finding its reasoning persuasive was enough. The court never reached consular nonreviewability or the TRAC factors.

Defendant Selection Matters: H-1B Delay Suit Dismembered on Standing Before Reaching the Merits

An H-1B specialty worker stranded in India after two successive § 221(g) refusals — separated from his U.S.-citizen wife and children and at risk of losing his job — sued the Secretary of State, senior consular-affairs officials, the DHS Secretary, the Attorney General, and the FBI Director. Judge Kelly dismissed the entire case, and the route matters as much as the result.

Claims against the DHS Secretary failed because USCIS had already approved the I-129 petition — its role was over (whether framed as mootness under Brzezinski or standing under Whitlock). Claims against the Attorney General, FBI Director, Secretary of State, and the Senior Bureau Official failed for lack of traceability: generic supervisory authority over “consular operations” or “background checks” does not plausibly connect those officials to one applicant’s delay. What remained against the consular officers was then dismissed — the mandamus count for lack of jurisdiction and the APA count for failure to state a claim.

Eight Months Is Not Unreasonable Delay — O-1 CEO’s Suit Dismissed on TRAC at the Pleading Stage

The CEO of a U.S. company — an O-1A extraordinary-ability petition approved through 2027 — was refused under § 221(g) at the Frankfurt consulate in January 2025, responded to every document request within days, and then heard nothing but boilerplate for eight months before filing suit. Judge Howell granted dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6).

Faced with the government’s standard trio — no nondiscretionary duty, consular nonreviewability, and failure to plead unreasonable delay — the court chose the merits ground: eight months of administrative processing does not plausibly allege unreasonable delay under TRAC, whatever the business and family costs. The opinion is a clean illustration that in the D.D.C. the clock, not the hardship, usually decides these motions at the threshold.

What June – July 2026 Teaches About Surviving the Motion to Dismiss

Five decisions, five government wins — but through three distinct doors: the Karimova no-duty holding (Wazir), TRAC applied at the pleading stage (Ghaffari Ajrabadi at 26 months; Oystacher at 8 months), and party-by-party standing dismemberment (Sharma). Only Perez Correa Camarena gives plaintiffs something to cite, and only on jurisdiction.

The composite lesson: (1) the D.D.C. is now the hardest forum in the country for consular § 221(g) delay claims — venue analysis belongs at the top of the engagement, not the appeal; (2) delay length remains the dominant variable, and anything under three years needs extraordinary factor-three facts; (3) complaints must be built backwards from Karimova and Da Costa, not from the FAM’s aspirational timelines; and (4) defendant selection is substantive strategy, not caption decoration.

EB-5, Second Verse: § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) Does Not Reach Agency Inaction — but Two Years Still States No Claim

A South Korean investor filed her Form I-526E on January 5, 2024 and sued in February 2026 with the petition untouched. Judge Howell rejected both of the government’s Rule 12(b)(1) arguments before dismissing on the merits. The jurisdictional holding is clean and quotable: § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) strips review only of a “decision or action,” and the government’s own brief described the case as one of “agency inaction.” With no decision and no action, the bar has nothing to attach to, and the § 701(a)(1) argument that rides on it fails with it. Read together with Perez Correa Camarena three weeks earlier, that is two EB-5 jurisdiction wins from two different judges in a single month.

The merits went the usual way. Plaintiff conceded that the FIFO policy upheld in Da Costa is a rule of reason and pleaded no fact suggesting USCIS had departed from it; § 1571(b)’s 180 days “somewhat favors” her only as a ruler, not a deadline. On factors three and five the court wanted specifics it did not get: which family members are “studying in the U.S.,” whether they are here temporarily, whether she depends on them, whether she has family in Seoul. “Prolonged uncertainty” and financial strain are, under Da Costa, not health-and-welfare harms. And the plaintiff’s fallback request — not the front of the line, just an order to decide within ninety days — was rejected as the same “wishful thinking” the D.C. Circuit condemned in Da Costa: a dated queue means any deadline is a reordering.

Karimova Declined: A § 221(g) Refusal Is Not a Final Decision — and the Plaintiff Loses on TRAC Anyway at Eighteen Months

A dual Iranian-German national with an MIT postdoctoral fellowship interviewed for a J-1 in Munich on January 17, 2025, was refused under § 221(g), completed the DS-5535 within three days, and heard nothing for a year and a half. Judge AliKhan wrote the most thorough rejection of the government’s Karimova theory this summer. The D.C. Circuit twice declined to publish Karimova, and under D.C. Circuit Rule 36(e)(2) that means the panel “sees no precedential value in that disposition”; the court took the Circuit at its word, considered the decision, and was “not inclined to follow it.” Karimova leans on FAM language that lacks the force of law and ignores what the complaint actually alleges: an interim step, a request for supplemental information, and a State Department portal that promises “another adjudication” once processing ends. Consular nonreviewability applies only to final decisions (Al-Gharawy), so it does not apply here.

On duty, the court “continues to adhere to the view that consular officials have a non-discretionary duty to fully adjudicate a visa application,” collecting Sharov, Ahmed, Nikjooy, Fetanat, Thein and Vulupala on one side and Alnaddaf, Lorkalantari, Rudd, Jahani, Pour and Ibrahim on the other. Even on Karimova’s own terms the Circuit rejected only § 555(b) as a source of duty; this plaintiff also pleaded 8 U.S.C. § 1202(d) and 22 C.F.R. § 41.121, which is enough at the pleading stage. Note the procedural wrinkle: because the no-duty argument is jurisdictional for the mandamus count, the court considered it sua sponte under Rule 12(b)(1) even though the government moved only under 12(b)(6).

None of it saved the case. Applying the TRAC factors at the pleading stage, the court measured the delay from the interview to the opinion (“less than eighteen months”), treated § 1571(b) as aspirational, rejected the “no evidence of a queue” argument under Augustin, found factors three and five only “slightly” in plaintiff’s favor despite the fellowship at risk, and dismissed.

H-1B Visa Stamping: Duty Assumed, Karimova Sidestepped, Eighteen Months Not Unreasonable

A Brazilian robotics professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute went home to renew his H-1B stamp, interviewed in São Paulo on January 10, 2025, and was refused under § 221(g) “to verify the applicant’s qualification for this visa.” Judge Walton took the route several colleagues have adopted this year: quoting the government’s own concession of “a raging debate and marked split among the jurists in this District as to the binding effect of Karimova,” he assumed a nondiscretionary duty in the plaintiff’s favor (following Oystacher, Motevali and Niyomwungere), declined to decide what Karimova does to consular nonreviewability, and went straight to TRAC.

There the case ended. Delay is measured to the date of the opinion (Brzezinski), roughly eighteen months; two to three years is the District’s “overwhelming trend” of reasonableness; an order to adjudicate would put him at the head of the queue with “no net gain.” The harms pleaded — inability to perform his contract, jeopardized employment, financial strain, students deprived of his teaching — were accepted as true and held insufficient: under Hajizadeh and Da Costa, professional and financial injury does not threaten “physical health and wellbeing.” No bad faith alleged, factor six neutral.

The Other Side of the Split: The § 221(g) Refusal Discharged the Only Duty — Case Over Without Reaching TRAC

Two weeks after Rahimzadegan, the same fact pattern produced the opposite doctrinal result. An Iranian H-1B postdoctoral scholar hired by UCLA interviewed in Dubai on January 17, 2024, was refused under § 221(g) the same day, and was still in administrative processing thirty-one months later. Magistrate Judge Harvey dismissed on the no-duty ground alone and never reached the TRAC factors or consular nonreviewability.

The reasoning is the fullest statement of the Karimova position yet written in the District. The regulations impose a binary duty — 22 C.F.R. §§ 41.106 and 41.121(a): issue or refuse — and a § 221(g) refusal is a refusal. Nothing in the INA or the regulations requires a refusal to be “final”; on the contrary, § 41.121(b)–(d) expressly contemplate post-refusal mechanisms to overcome ineligibility, supervisory review, and advisory opinions “after a visa has been refused.” Under Hawkes and Sackett, the possibility that an agency may revise a decision does not make it nonfinal. Sections 555(b) and 706(1) of the APA, 8 U.S.C. § 1202(d) and (e), the FAM, and 22 C.F.R. § 42.81(e) were each examined and rejected as sources of any further duty. On precedential weight, the opinion candidly sets out the conflict between D.C. Circuit Rules 32.1(b)(1)(B) and 36(e)(2), notes that Karimova was argued orally and reasoned at length, and lists roughly a dozen District decisions on each side of the question.

The holding: “the consular officer having ‘officially refused’ this visa application, the ‘matter’ has been ‘concluded,’” and the plaintiff is asking the court to order a discretionary re-adjudication to proceed faster, which no source of law requires.

Thirty Months for a Tourist Visa: Reviewable, but Not Unreasonable

A dual Iranian-Swedish citizen and his Swedish wife applied for B-1/B-2 visas in Copenhagen to spend Nowruz in Los Angeles. Both interviewed on January 17, 2024; she had her visa within a month, he was placed in administrative processing on February 14, 2024 and remains there after a congressional inquiry and repeated boilerplate replies. Chief Judge Boasberg rejected the government’s Karimova-based consular nonreviewability argument for the reasons he gave in Dib v. Shea (D.D.C. June 2, 2026), held the claim reviewable, and then dismissed on TRAC.

The opinion is useful for its candor about the arithmetic. It notes the intra-district disagreement over whether delay is measured to the complaint (Barazandeh) or to the opinion (Brzezinski) and finds it immaterial: even thirty months sits inside the two-to-three-year band the District treats as reasonable as a matter of law, with a string cite running from Didban to Isse (forty months). It acknowledges “how hard it is for a plaintiff to allege facts beyond the length of the delay before he has gotten discovery,” and answers that some delays are long enough to carry the day alone — this one is not. Factors three and five: frustrated vacation plans, however elaborate, are not health and welfare, and no separation from a spouse or family was alleged. The mandamus count was resolved on the merits by presuming jurisdiction (Abdellatif, Kramer).

Survived the Motion to Dismiss, Lost on the Pleadings: Twenty-Nine Months and a Rule 12(c) Judgment

A U.S. citizen filed an F4 sibling petition in 2006. When the visas finally came through, the beneficiary and all of her children but one were issued; the last son was refused under § 221(g) after the February 29, 2024 interview and left in administrative processing. In October 2025 Judge Mehta denied the government’s motion to dismiss, reading Karimova narrowly — it addressed § 555(b) and nothing else — and holding that consular nonreviewability does not shield inaction. The government answered and moved for judgment on the pleadings on TRAC alone. Granted.

Every plaintiff-side argument in the current playbook was addressed and rejected. TRAC applies at the pleadings without an administrative record (Da Costa, Vafaei; out-of-circuit authority “outweighed”). Section 1571(b) is aspirational; the FAM’s 30/60-day target is aspirational; 22 C.F.R. § 42.81(e) gives the applicant a one-year window to submit evidence, not the officer a one-year deadline to decide. The Wu declaration on Security Advisory Opinion processing — the government’s standard factor-one exhibit, adopted here from Shoaie — shows a rule of reason even without first-in-first-out order. Twenty-nine months is within range. No evidence of a queue is needed for factor four (Shoaie, collecting cases), and the plaintiff’s position in it is “entirely speculative” (Tekle). Factors three and five tipped “slightly” toward the family on the aging parents’ declaration, with a pointed reminder to the government about “the sense of urgency one would expect when familial interests are at stake,” but not enough. The mandamus count fell separately because the APA supplies an adequate remedy (Fornaro).

The Suit Produced a Decision — a § 212(f) Refusal Under Proclamation 10998 — and the Case Died as Moot

A U.S. citizen in California, sole caregiver for a seriously ill mother, petitioned for her Iranian husband. He interviewed in Ankara in May 2024, was refused under § 221(g), and sat in administrative processing; an expedite request supported by medical records was declined in March 2025. She sued pro se in July 2025. The government moved to dismiss in December 2025 on the Karimova ground. In May 2026, with the motion fully briefed, the embassy issued a Refusal Worksheet finding him ineligible under § 212(f) pursuant to Proclamation 10998, stating that the refusal could not be appealed and that no National Interest Exception would be granted.

Judge Contreras held the delay claim moot. A § 212(f) refusal issued during litigation is a final decision; the plaintiff “obtained the relief she sought, even if the result is not the one for which she had hoped” (Aramnahad, Nikjooy, Aboutalebi; Mehneh v. Rubio, 164 F.4th 928 (D.C. Cir. 2026); Nagi v. Rubio (S.D.N.Y. June 25, 2026), collecting Proclamation 10998 cases nationwide). Her post-refusal filings were construed as a motion to amend and denied as futile: consular nonreviewability bars review of the refusal; citing § 212(f) and the Proclamation is a “facially legitimate and bona fide reason” under Din and Mansoob; and the forward-looking-policy exception (Pietersen, Al-Shakliah) does not apply because she attacked the Proclamation’s application to her husband rather than its validity. The January 14, 2026 public-charge cable, held unlawful elsewhere, was irrelevant because the refusal rested on § 212(f), not § 221(g). Her motion for default judgment failed too: the government’s deadline had been extended fifty-three days by Standing Order 25-59 during the appropriations lapse.

DV-2026 Pauses Held Unlawful — but the Unreasonable-Delay and Mandamus Counts Fail, and Relief Runs Only to the Named Plaintiffs

Seven hundred thirty-eight DV-2026 selectee families in the lead case alone: sixty-five adjusting status inside the United States, 673 abroad, 557 of them nationals of one of the seventy-five countries covered by the January 14, 2026 public-charge cable. Three policies were on the table: the December 19, 2025 USCIS memorandum holding all DV adjustment applications (PM-602-0193), the December 20, 2025 State Department cable directing consular officers to refuse every DV applicant under § 221(g), and the January 14, 2026 cable directing § 221(g) refusals for all immigrant visa applicants from the seventy-five countries.

Judge Leon held the USCIS Pause and the State DV Pause arbitrary and capricious — the administrative records supply no reasoned explanation for a categorical halt — and procedurally invalid for want of notice and comment, rejecting the foreign-affairs exception (E.B. v. Department of State). The Public Charge Pause is independently unlawful because it replaces the individualized public-charge determination Congress requires with a nationality-based bar. The constitutional claims failed.

Then the part that matters for this page. On unlawful withholding, unreasonable delay, and mandamus, the government won summary judgment across the board. Selectees already refused under § 221(g) have nothing left to compel: Judge Leon applied Karimova exactly as he did in Wazir in July, and did not reach consular nonreviewability. For everyone else, TRAC: factors three and five favored the plaintiffs (the September 30 cliff, and hardship the government “to some extent concede[d]”), but the fiscal-year end is an eligibility cutoff, not a congressional timetable (Babamuradova); factor four forbids reordering the queue (Motevali); and the “premeditated intent to eliminate the DV program” argument produced no factual content of bad faith. Remedy: with both sides agreeing to party-specific relief, the pauses were declared unlawful as applied to the named plaintiffs and their derivatives, the State Department must take reasonable steps before September 30 to reconsider refusals resting solely on the pauses, and USCIS must resume ordinary adjudication of the named plaintiffs’ applications. Nothing extends eligibility past September 30, 2026, and nothing helps a selectee who did not sue. The opinion notes that the Public Charge Pause was separately vacated by the Southern District of New York in Catholic Legal Immigration Network.

What Late Summer Adds: Three Doors Become Four, and the Split Hardens

Thirteen delay decisions in ten weeks, thirteen government wins on the delay question. The three dismissal routes identified above are all still open, and August added a fourth. Karimova no-duty: Wazir, Rouhigilavan, and the refused plaintiffs in Ivanov. TRAC at the threshold: Ghaffari Ajrabadi, Oystacher, Park, Rahimzadegan, Silva, Momeni, and Shaheen on a Rule 12(c) motion after surviving 12(b)(6). Standing and defendant selection: Sharma. New this month, mootness by final refusal: Sorbi, where the suit itself appears to have prompted the § 212(f) decision that ended it.

The § 221(g) split now has a scorecard. Following Karimova: Judge Leon (Wazir, Ivanov) and Magistrate Judge Harvey (Rouhigilavan). Rejecting or narrowing it: Judge AliKhan (Rahimzadegan), Judge Mehta (Shaheen, October 2025 ruling), Chief Judge Boasberg (Dib, Momeni). Assuming the duty without deciding: Judge Howell (Oystacher) and Judge Walton (Silva). The D.C. Circuit has not published on the question; until it does, the assignment wheel is the first ruling in every consular case filed in this District.

The calendar is unforgiving. Delays of eight, eighteen, eighteen, twenty-four, twenty-six, twenty-nine, thirty, and thirty-one months were all dismissed; nothing under three years survived, and the judges are now saying out loud (Momeni) that a plaintiff below that line has almost no way to plead around it before discovery. What moved factors three and five, even slightly: aging parents with a declaration (Shaheen), a fellowship about to lapse (Rahimzadegan), a statutory cliff (Ivanov). What did not: a job, a contract, uncertainty, a vacation, or family described in general terms (Park, Silva, Momeni).

Where plaintiffs actually won this summer: jurisdiction over EB-5 pacing claims (Perez Correa Camarena, Park); reviewability of administrative-processing delay (Rahimzadegan, Momeni, and Shaheen at the first round); and the § 706(2) challenge to categorical pauses (Ivanov). None of those wins is a delay remedy. All of them are worth pleading.