Ayala v. Jaddou

Filing 13

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER granting 7 Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction. (Ordered by Senior Judge A. Joe Fish on 3/6/2025) (cfk)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS
DALLAS DIVISION

SANTIAGO AYALA,
Plaintiff,
VS.
UR JADDOU, Director, United States
Citizenship and Immigration Services,
Defendant.

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CIVIL ACTION NO.
3:24-CV-0320-G

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Before the court is the defendant’s motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter
jurisdiction. See Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss and Brief in Support (“Motion”)
(docket entry 7). For the reasons stated below, the motion is granted.
I. BACKGROUND
The plaintiff Santiago Ayala (“Ayala”) is a United States citizen. Original
Complaint (“Complaint”) ¶ 2 (docket entry 1). On or about March 3, 2022, Ayala
filed a petition for alien relative (“I-130 petition” or “petition”) with the United
States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) on behalf of the alien child to
classify her as an “immediate relative” of a United States citizen under 8 U.S.C.

§ 1151(b)(2)(A)(i).* Id. ¶ 7; Plaintiff’s Opposition to Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss
and Brief in Support (“Response”) (docket entry 11) at 1-2; see also Appendix in
Support of Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss (“Defendant’s Appendix”) (docket entry
8) at App.001; Motion at 1 (Ayala “filed [the I-130 petition] on behalf of his
purported adopted child, a noncitizen[.]”). The petition is being adjudicated at
USCIS’s National Benefits Center. Motion at 2.
Ayala initiated this action by filing a complaint against Ur Jaddou (“the
defendant” or “the government”), then Director of USCIS, in her official capacity.
See generally Complaint. Ayala asserts that this court has jurisdiction to review his
case pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), 5 U.S.C. § 706(1), the
Mandamus Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1361, and federal question jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1331. Id. ¶ 4; Response at 5-8. Ayala contends that the delay in adjudicating his
petition is unreasonable and therefore a violation of the APA, Complaint ¶¶ 16, 18,
and seeks a writ of mandamus to compel USCIS to render a decision on his I-130
petition “within a reasonable time[,]” id. ¶ 19.
Relying on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), which permits dismissal
for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the government argues that the court is without
subject matter jurisdiction over this case because Ayala has not sufficiently alleged an
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Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a United States citizen
claiming that an alien is entitled to immediate relative status under 8 U.S.C.
§ 1151(b)(2)(A)(i) may file an I-130 petition with the Attorney General for such
classification.
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unreasonable delay in the adjudication of his I-130 petition, and there is no statutory
or regulatory deadline for the adjudication of the petition. See generally Motion.
II. ANALYSIS
A. Motion to Dismiss Pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1)
Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction. See Kokkonen v. Guardian Life
Insurance Company of America, 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994); Owen Equipment and Erection
Company v. Kroger, 437 U.S. 365, 374 (1978). A federal court may exercise
jurisdiction over cases only as expressly provided by the Constitution and laws of the
United States. See U.S. CONST. art. III §§ 1-2; see also Kokkonen, 511 U.S. at 377.
Federal law gives the federal district courts original jurisdiction over “all civil actions
arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.” 28 U.S.C.
§ 1331. Moreover, a party seeking relief in a federal district court bears the burden of
establishing the subject matter jurisdiction of that court. United States v. Hays, 515
U.S. 737, 743 (1995); McNutt v. General Motors Acceptance Corporation of Indiana, Inc.,
298 U.S. 178, 189 (1936); Langley v. Jackson State University, 14 F.3d 1070, 1073
(5th Cir.), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 811 (1994).
Rule 12(b)(1) authorizes the dismissal of a case for lack of jurisdiction over the
subject matter. See FED. R. CIV. P. 12(b)(1). A motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule
12(b)(1) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction must be considered by the court before
any other challenge because “the court must find jurisdiction before determining the

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validity of a claim.” Moran v. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 27 F.3d 169, 172 (5th Cir.
1994) (internal citation omitted); see also Ruhrgas AG v. Marathon Oil Company, 526
U.S. 574, 577 (1999) (“The requirement that jurisdiction be established as a
threshold matter . . . is inflexible and without exception”) (citation and internal
quotation marks omitted).
On a Rule 12(b)(1) motion, which “concerns the court’s ‘very power to hear
the case . . . [,] the trial court is free to weigh the evidence and satisfy itself as to the
existence of its power to hear the case.’” MDPhysicians & Associates, Inc. v. State Board
of Insurance, 957 F.2d 178, 181 (5th Cir.) (quoting Williamson v. Tucker, 645 F.2d
404, 413 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 897 (1981)), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 861
(1992). In ruling on a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1), the court may rely on:
“1) the complaint alone; 2) the complaint supplemented by undisputed facts; or 3)
the complaint supplemented by undisputed facts and the court’s resolution of
disputed facts.” MCG, Inc. v. Great Western Energy Corporation, 896 F.2d 170, 176
(5th Cir. 1990) (citing Williamson, 645 F.2d at 413). Once jurisdiction is challenged,
the burden rests upon the party seeking to invoke the court’s jurisdiction to prove
that jurisdiction is proper. Boudreau v. United States, 53 F.3d 81, 82 (5th Cir. 1995),
cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1071.
The standard for reviewing a motion under Rule 12(b)(1) depends on whether
a defendant makes a facial or factual attack on the plaintiff’s complaint. Paterson v.

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Weinberger, 644 F.2d 521, 523 (5th Cir.1981). A defendant makes a factual attack
by providing affidavits, testimony, or other evidentiary materials challenging the
jurisdiction of the court. Id. In a factual attack, the plaintiff is required to submit
facts in support of jurisdiction and has the burden of proving, by a preponderance of
the evidence, that the trial court has subject matter jurisdiction over the claims.
Middle South Energy, Inc. v. City of New Orleans, 800 F.2d 488, 490 (5th Cir. 1986).
B. APA
Under the APA, “[a] person suffering legal wrong because of agency action, or
adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant
statute, is entitled to judicial review thereof.” 5 U.S.C. § 702. The APA defines
“agency action” to include “failure to act[.]” Id. § 551(13).
The APA requires an administrative agency to act upon matters presented to it
“within a reasonable time,” id. § 555(b), and provides that federal courts “shall . . .
compel agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed . . . .” Id.
§ 706(1). An unreasonable delay claim “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.”
Li v. Jaddou, No. 22-50756, 2023 WL 3431237, at *1 (5th Cir. May 12, 2023) (per
curiam) (emphasis in the original, numbering added) (quoting Norton v. Southern Utah
Wilderness Alliance, 542 U.S. 55, 64 (2004)).

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While it is true that the decision of whether to approve an I-130 petition is
discretionary, it cannot be said that the government has discretion regarding whether
or not to make that decision, whatever it may be. Additionally, under section 555(b)
of the APA, the government must make the decision within a reasonable time.
Therefore, if the plaintiff can present a clear right to relief, both the APA and the
Mandamus Act authorize the court to compel adjudication of the outstanding
petition. The court finds that USCIS has a nondiscretionary duty to adjudicate
Ayala’s I-130 petition. Mehalingam v. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services,
No. 3:20-CV-3651-M, Sealed Order (“Order”) (docket entry 13) at 4-5 (N.D. Tex.
Jan. 21, 2021) (Lynn, C.J.) (collecting cases). However, there is no mandate that
USCIS act within a specific timeframe. Li, 2023 WL 3431237, at *1; Chuttani v.
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, No. 3:19-CV-2955-X, 2020 WL
7225995, at *3 (N.D. Tex. Dec. 8, 2020) (Starr, J.).
Ayala contends that the time span from the time the petition was filed to the
present constitutes an unreasonable delay for the purposes of the APA. See generally
Complaint; Response. The government, on the other hand, argues that because there
are no statutory or regulatory provisions that provide a standard against which to
measure USCIS’s process of adjudicating applications, the court cannot determine
whether or not a “reasonable time” has elapsed. See Motion to Dismiss at 3-6.

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Ayala avers that processing times at the National Benefits Center are longer
than those for similar petitions adjudicated at other USCIS service centers.
Complaint ¶ 8. He further alleges that “USCIS unreasonably placed the Petition for
adjudication at a USCIS office that is less equipped than other offices to process
I-130 petitions,” id. ¶ 10, and asserts that “[i]t very well may be that the Petition is at
the wrong USCIS office[,]” Response at 4. Conversely, the government asserts that
“[b]ecause the Form I-130 petition at issue involves an alleged adoption relationship,
it is not unreasonable for USCIS to adjudicate the petition at the National Benefits
Center” where immigration officers “trained to adjudicate Form I-130 petitions that
are based on an alleged adoption relationship” are based. Defendant’s Reply Brief in
Support of Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss (docket entry 12) at 4; see also Motion at
5 n.3; Defendant’s Appendix at App.002 (“USCIS centralized at the National
Benefits Center processing of concurrently filed Form I-130 cases based on an
adoption in June 2015 and stand-alone adoption petitions in August 2018.”). The
current posted time for the National Benefits Center to process a Form I-130,
Petition for Alien Relative, United States Citizen, filing on behalf of a spouse, parent,
or child, is 48.5 months. See https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/ (last accessed
Mar. 4, 2025); id. (“80% of cases are completed in 48.5 months”). Ayala has failed
to demonstrate that a delay in adjudicating his I-130 petition is unreasonable.
Accordingly, without a clear mandate, the court concludes that it lacks subject matter

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jurisdiction over Ayala’s APA claim. See Heidarnejad v. United States Citizenship and
Immigration Services, 721 F. Supp. 3d 520, 525 (W.D. Tex. 2024); Paka v. United
States Citizenship and Immigration Services, No. 3:20-CV-1545-X, 2021 WL 857087, at
*2 (N.D. Tex. Mar. 8, 2021) (Starr, J.).
C. The Mandamus Statute
The Mandamus Act vests courts with original jurisdiction “to compel an officer
or employee of the United States or any agency thereof to perform a duty owed to
the plaintiff.” 28 U.S.C. § 1361. The remedy of mandamus is generally viewed as “a
drastic one, to be invoked only in extraordinary situations.” Kerr v. United States
District Court, 426 U.S. 394, 402 (1976) (citations omitted). Mandamus relief is
appropriate “only when the plaintiff’s claim is clear and certain and the duty of the
officer is ministerial and so plainly prescribed as to be free from doubt.” Giddings v.
Chandler, 979 F.2d 1104, 1108 (5th Cir.1992) (internal quotation and citations
omitted). For many of the same reasons articulated above, the court does not have
subject matter jurisdiction over Ayala’s mandamus request. See Heidarnejad, 721 F.
Supp. 3d at 525; Mehalingam, No. 3:20-CV-03651-M, Order at 7; see also Chuttani,
2020 WL 7225995, at *5 (“Because the Court is convinced issuance of the writ
would be inappropriate prior to a well-timed Administrative Procedure Act challenge,
the Court finds mandamus is not an appropriate remedy under the circumstances,
and therefore declines to issue the writ.”). Accordingly, the court grants the

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government’s motion to dismiss Ayala’s claim for a writ of mandamus for lack of
subject matter jurisdiction.
III. CONCLUSION
For the reasons set forth above, the defendant’s motion to dismiss is
GRANTED. A judgment of dismissal without prejudice will be entered separately.
SO ORDERED.
March 6, 2025.
___________________________________
A. JOE FISH
Senior United States District Judge

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