The Northern District of Texas matters to delay practice for one reason that has nothing to do with where its residents live: the USCIS Texas Service Center sits in Irving, in Dallas County, inside this district. TSC adjudicates a large share of the national workload, which means a great many petitioners who have never set foot in Texas have a colorable venue argument here. After Cheejati v. Blinken, that is a fact to manage rather than an opportunity to take.
Getting the case here: the venue analysis
A civil action against federal officers sued in their official capacity is governed by 28 U.S.C. § 1391(e)(1), which is considerably more generous than the ordinary venue statute. Venue is proper in any judicial district in which:
- § 1391(e)(1)(A) — a defendant resides. For officers sued in an official capacity, residence means the district of the officer's official station. The Secretary of Homeland Security and the Director of USCIS sit in Washington, D.C.
- § 1391(e)(1)(B) — a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to the claim occurred. In a delay case the operative omission is the failure to decide, which points at whichever office is actually sitting on the file — a field office, a service center, or a national unit.
- § 1391(e)(1)(C) — the plaintiff resides, so long as no real property is involved in the action.
The three prongs are independent, and satisfying any one makes venue proper. In the Fifth Circuit that arithmetic runs in an unusual direction: because of the case law set out below, the question for most petitioners is not how to establish venue in Texas but whether to avoid it where another district is genuinely available.
The Texas Service Center problem
Where an application is pending at TSC, the omission complained of — the failure to adjudicate — occurs in Irving. That supplies a § 1391(e)(1)(B) argument for venue in the Northern District of Texas for a petitioner living anywhere in the United States. The district also covers Dallas, Fort Worth, Amarillo, Lubbock, Abilene, San Angelo and Wichita Falls, so the residence prong is available to a large population in its own right.
Pleading TSC as the venue hook routes the case into the Fifth Circuit, and with it into Cheejati. For a petitioner who resides in another circuit, that is very often the worst of the available forums, and the § 1391(e)(1)(C) residence prong will usually be the better pleading even though the file physically sits in Irving.
The converse also matters. Where the government would rather litigate in the Fifth Circuit, the presence of TSC gives it a § 1404(a) transfer argument out of a friendlier district. Anticipate it — see Defending Venue Transfer and Choice of Forum.
One further structural feature of this district deserves attention at the pleading stage. NDTX sits in seven divisions, and a case is assigned within the division in which it is filed. Because the divisions are staffed very unevenly, the choice of division can substantially narrow the range of possible assignments in a way it would not in a single-courthouse district. Counsel should check the court's current division-assignment order before filing rather than assume district-wide random assignment.
The governing law in the Fifth Circuit
The Fifth Circuit is, as of 2026, the most difficult circuit in the country in which to bring a USCIS adjudication-delay claim, and the reason is a single 2024 decision. Any assessment of a Texas filing begins and very often ends there.
Indian nationals on employment-based visas filed I-485s while visa numbers appeared available. The Final Action Date then retrogressed, and DOS and USCIS held the applications in abeyance under what the parties called the retrogression hold policies. The applicants sued under APA § 706(1). The Fifth Circuit vacated and remanded with instructions to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
The court rested on 8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii), reading it through Patel v. Garland, 596 U.S. 328, 338 (2022), which had endorsed an expansive construction of § 1252(a)(2)(B). The operative sentence:
“Section 1255(a) expressly leaves not only the ultimate decision to adjust an applicant's immigration status but also actions taken in the course of the decision-making process — including the pace at which that process is undertaken — to the discretion of the Attorney General.”
The opinion issued July 5, 2024 withdrew and substituted the panel's earlier opinion of April 9, 2024, reported at 97 F.4th 988. The appeal reached the court from the Eastern District of Texas, on review of a denied preliminary injunction — but it binds every district in the circuit.
The supporting authority the government will cite with it
- Bian v. Clinton, 605 F.3d 249, 252–53 (5th Cir. 2010), which held § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) precluded review of “the USCIS's pace of adjudication” on facts Cheejati called “virtually identical.” Bian was vacated as moot when a visa number became available, so it is not itself binding authority — but Cheejati adopted its reasoning as persuasive, which is how it should be cited and answered.
- Li v. Jaddou, No. 22-50756, 2023 WL 3431237, at *1 (5th Cir. May 12, 2023) (unpublished), holding the pace of USCIS adjudication discretionary with “no clear mandate” to act within any timeframe.
- Thigulla v. Jaddou, 94 F.4th 770, 775–78 (8th Cir. 2024), which Cheejati expressly followed as the only other circuit then to have addressed the question.
Cheejati also forecloses two familiar answers. The § 1252(a)(2)(D) exception for constitutional claims and questions of law applies only on a petition for review filed in the court of appeals — Mendoza v. Mayorkas, No. 23-20043, 2023 WL 6518152, at *2 & n.1 (5th Cir. Oct. 5, 2023). And the argument that § 1252(a)(2)(B) reaches only removal cases fails on the statute's own text, which applies “regardless of whether the judgment, decision, or action is made in removal proceedings.” Accord Abuzeid v. Mayorkas, 62 F.4th 578, 586 (D.C. Cir. 2023); Juras v. Garland, 21 F.4th 53, 60 (2d Cir. 2021); Al-Saadoon v. Barr, 973 F.3d 794, 802 n.6 (8th Cir. 2020).
Cheejati is a § 1255 case. Its entire logic runs through the words “in his discretion” in § 1255(a): because adjustment is committed to the Attorney General's discretion, so is the pace of adjudicating it. That reasoning does not transfer automatically to benefits whose governing statute lacks that language:
- N-400 naturalization is the clearest example. A delay past 120 days from the examination is governed by 8 U.S.C. § 1447(b), which is its own grant of district-court jurisdiction rather than an exercise of discretion — see N-400 Naturalization.
- I-130 petitions are approved on a finding of a qualifying relationship under § 1154, not as a matter of grace.
- I-765, I-751 and I-90 rest on different statutory and regulatory footing again, some of it carrying explicit processing deadlines.
A Fifth Circuit petitioner's case is therefore usually won or lost on characterizing the benefit, not on the length of the delay. A complaint that pleads a stalled I-485 in the ordinary way invites Cheejati; one that identifies a non-discretionary statutory or regulatory command has something to argue.
The alternative holding — clearing jurisdiction is not winning
Part V of Cheejati holds that even if the jurisdictional conclusion were wrong, the plaintiffs had not shown a likelihood of success under § 706(1). The controlling rule is Norton v. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, 542 U.S. 55, 64 (2004): a § 706(1) claim “can proceed only where a plaintiff asserts that an agency failed to take a discrete agency action that it is required to take.” A court's authority to compel is limited to cases where the agency ignored “a specific, unequivocal command” in a statute or binding regulation — Cheejati, quoting Fort Bend County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (5th Cir. 2023). See Norton v. SUWA.
The practical consequence is that the TRAC factors carry less weight here than in the D.C. or Second Circuits. In a circuit that treats the pace of § 1255 adjudication as unreviewable, a court may never reach the reasonableness question the TRAC factors exist to answer. Relief in the nature of mandamus under 28 U.S.C. § 1361 fares no better on its own terms: it lies only to compel a clear, non-discretionary duty. Heckler v. Ringer, 466 U.S. 602, 616 (1984); Work v. United States ex rel. Rives, 267 U.S. 175, 177 (1925); Pittston Coal Group v. Sebben, 488 U.S. 105, 121 (1988).
The controlling authority on this page is circuit law, which is published and verifiable. District-level delay decisions in Texas are a different matter: the overwhelming majority end without a written opinion — the agency adjudicates after service and the parties stipulate to dismissal, or the court disposes of the case by unpublished order. Those dispositions never enter the reported case law.
So no honest guide can tell you how this district ruled last month. What it can tell you is what binds the district, which after Cheejati is the part that decides most cases anyway.
Estimated disposition posture
I do not publish an estimated disposition split for NDTX. The district-by-district estimates reported elsewhere on this site are synthesized from secondary sources covering seven districts that do not include this one — see the flagship comparison for that methodology and its limits. Rather than extrapolate a number, the honest statement is that the Fifth Circuit's jurisdictional posture makes a contested Rule 12(b)(1) motion materially more likely here than in the Second, Third or Sixth Circuit districts, and materially more likely to succeed.
Strategic considerations
- Do not plead the Texas Service Center as your venue hook unless you want the Fifth Circuit. This is the single most consequential decision on an NDTX filing.
- Characterize the benefit before you draft. An I-485 delay claim runs straight into Cheejati. An N-400 under § 1447(b), or a claim resting on a specific regulatory deadline, does not obviously do so.
- Answer Cheejati in the complaint. Where NDTX is genuinely the right forum, the jurisdictional argument should be met in the four corners of the pleading rather than for the first time in opposition.
- Treat Bian correctly. It is vacated. If the government cites it as binding, say so — and address the reasoning Cheejati adopted from it.
- Plan for the alternative holding. Even a claim that survives § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) must identify a discrete, legally required action under Norton v. SUWA.
When NDTX is the right choice
NDTX is the right forum for petitioners who actually live in north Texas, and for cases where the benefit at issue sits outside Cheejati's § 1255 reasoning — a § 1447(b) naturalization action being the clearest example. It is also the correct forum where no other district is available and the alternative is not filing at all.
It is the wrong forum for a discretionary-benefit delay claim brought by a petitioner who could file somewhere else. The Texas Service Center makes NDTX available to a very large number of people; for most of them, availability is not a reason to use it.
Considering a mandamus petition in Northern District of Texas?
Forum choice is part of the analysis from day one. If you have a delayed USCIS application and you want to discuss whether NDTX is the right venue — or whether a different district would be stronger — reach out for a no-cost case evaluation.