The Southern District of Texas covers Houston, Galveston, Corpus Christi, Brownsville, Laredo, McAllen and Victoria — a stretch of the state containing a substantial share of the southwest-border immigration caseload and several of the country's busiest USCIS and asylum offices. Its delay docket is large by any measure. It is also one of the hardest districts in the country in which to survive a motion to dismiss, for reasons that are entirely a matter of binding circuit law.
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.
SDTX runs from Houston to the Rio Grande Valley, and for most of its petitioners the residence prong under § 1391(e)(1)(C) and the omission prong under § 1391(e)(1)(B) point to the same district: the Houston field office and the Houston and Harlingen asylum offices all sit within it. Note that the Texas Service Center is not here — it sits in Irving, in the Northern District of Texas — so a case anchored to TSC belongs in NDTX rather than SDTX.
Because so many national units sit outside Texas, a petitioner with a genuine choice should plead the prong they intend to rely on and expect it to be tested under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a). See Defending Venue Transfer and Choice of Forum.
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).
How this plays out in SDTX
Surviving the jurisdictional motion is not the same as winning, and SDTX supplies a clean illustration of the gap between the two.
An I-824 follow-to-join case against the Department of State. Judge Eskridge denied the government's motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction — then granted the government summary judgment on the administrative record, holding that the TRAC factors did not establish that adjudication had been “unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed” under 5 U.S.C. § 706(1). The action was dismissed without prejudice.
The lesson is the one Cheejati's Part V makes at the circuit level: clearing the jurisdictional hurdle simply moves the fight to the record, and the record is where a thinly-pleaded delay case tends to lose.
Practitioners filing in SDTX should anticipate a motion to dismiss invoking Cheejati in substantially every § 1255 case, and should draft the petition with that motion in mind — while recognizing that the answer to it is a characterization argument about the benefit at issue, not an argument about how long the wait has been.
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
My estimate, synthesized from the secondary sources cited in the flagship district comparison, is that roughly 70% of resolved SDTX cases end in voluntary dismissal after USCIS adjudicates the underlying application, while about 22% are dismissed on a government Rule 12 motion. That 22% MTD rate is the second highest of the seven districts I track, behind only DDC. These are estimates, not audited statistics — see the methodology section of the flagship page for limitations.
Strategic considerations
- Characterize the benefit first. Whether the claim is inside or outside Cheejati's § 1255 reasoning decides more SDTX cases than any other single factor.
- Where venue flexibility exists, the Fifth Circuit is the higher-risk choice against a Second, Third or Sixth Circuit alternative.
- Meet Cheejati in the complaint, not in a reply brief.
- Build the administrative record early. Ahmed v. Bitter shows that the case can be lost on the record after the jurisdictional fight is won.
- The U.S. Attorney's Office is generally responsive where the underlying application is straightforward, but its willingness to move USCIS to adjudicate once suit is filed is lower than in EDNY or D. Conn.
When SDTX is the right choice
SDTX is the right venue when the petitioner lives in southern or southeastern Texas, when the Houston or Harlingen asylum offices are the source of the delay, or when an associated USCIS field office sits within the district. For petitioners with a genuine choice, it is appropriate where the claim falls outside Cheejati — a § 1447(b) naturalization action, or a claim resting on a specific statutory or regulatory command — and not otherwise.
For a petitioner who could file in SDTX but also in a Second, Third or Sixth Circuit district, the alternative forum is very often preferable.
Considering a mandamus petition in Southern 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 SDTX is the right venue — or whether a different district would be stronger — reach out for a no-cost case evaluation.