Tag Archives: Immigration lawsuit

Mehta v. DOS TRO Rejected

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Mehta v. DOS TRO Rejected

The federal court has rejected the petition for a temporary restraining order that would have reinstated the original October Visa Bulletin. Instead, the revised October Visa Bulletin – the one that at the eleventh hour revoked the filing dates for thousands of imminent Green Card applicants – remains controlling. A class action suit was filed (Mehta v. DOS) in Seattle in the Western District of Washington. The requested relief was a temporary restraining order, which is an exceptionally difficult standard to meet.

The litigators and main parties suing remain optimistic. They were able to crowdfund 25,000 to fund the legal fight against the Department of State. The hope is that once all of the evidence is presented, the court will rule in favor of the plaintiffs. The other important aspect of the TRO was that it forced an explanation of the rescission of the original visa bulletin.

This lawsuit germinated from the rescission of the original October Visa Bulletin with a revised bulletin that rolled back many of the categories months and years. EB-3 and EB-2 categories were particularly hard hit and are the focus of the lawsuit, though there are many hopeful applicants in the family categories affected adversely. The visa bulletin is published monthly by the State Department in conjunction with USCIS, so that individuals know when they are able to file for their Green Cards based on priority dates. The visa bulletin published just priority dates until last month, when visa modernization manifested through a filing date and action date. The filing dates in the original October Visa Bulletin had many individuals hopeful that their time had finally come.

The November Visa Bulletin is expected Friday.

DOS Lawsuit Update

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Class Action Suit Versus Department of State

Mehta v. DOS is the class action lawsuit that private lawyers have filed to compel the federal government to use the original October Visa Bulletin that thousands of newly eligible Green Card eligible individuals file for permanent residence. The lawyers filed the complaint on September 28. It is replete with declarations and stories from individuals who were convinced from September 9 to September 25 that the government had made an immigrant visa available to them. Many but not all of the individuals in the lawsuit are EB-2 and EB-3 individuals from India and China. There are also concerns for individuals aging out from the Child Status Protection Act. The complaint requests that the federal court reinstate the Visa Bulletin issued on September 9, rather than the revised October Visa Bulletin that is in force. The revised bulletin has dashed many potential applicants’ hopes by rolling back filing times. The original bulletin was feted for “modernizing” the process by including filing dates and priority dates. The modernization was an aspect of the president’s executive actions on immigration from November 2014.

The main update from the lawsuit is that the federal judge is expected to make his decision on whether the government must use the original visa bulletin on Monday. Hopeful applicants who decided to give the application a try anyway have had their packages refused by USCIS. Pressure has been mounting from interested Congresspersons, through media channels, and individuals’ actions, in addition to the lawsuit. For example, some have taken to sending roses to USCIS.

The complaint details the lives of the representatives of the class action lawsuit. The representatives each have different stories, but the common thread is that they had been waiting for visa availability for years and were finally able to file. They continue to wait anxiously, as a decision is expected on Monday. If the revised bulletin is upheld, it is unknown when they will be able to file. The calculations are done on a month-to-month basis.

The hashtag on Twitter is #visagate2015.

October Visa Bulletin

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October Visa Bulletin: Rollback and Lawsuit

The past week of the Visa Bulletin has been a whirlwind. Thousands of individuals waiting in line to file for their Permanent Residence thought they had finally become eligible to file through a modernized October Visa Bulletin that the State Department released on September 9. Instead on September 25, the State Department issued a revised Bulletin that undid the changes of the original Bulletin. The consequence is that thousands of individuals, especially those in the EB-2 category with Chinese and Indian chargeability, are no longer allowed to file for Green Cards this month. Thousands of individuals with approved PERM cases and Permanent Residence eligibility are in no man’s land and uncertain as to when they will be able to file.

The rolled back filing dates on the September 25 Visa Bulletin look like this:

EB-2 China – 1/1/2013 – rolled back 17 months

EB-2 India – 7/1/2009 – rolled back 2 years

EB-3 Philippines – 1/1/2010 – rolled back 5 years

FB-1 Mexico – 4/1/1995 – rolled back 3 months

FB-3 Mexico – rolled back 17 months

The modernization of the Visa Bulletin was to include filing date eligibility alongside priority dates. Previous visa bulletins only showed the priority dates. The priority and filing dates are calculated by the available allotment of Green Cards, as there are percentage restrictions for each category (for example, 28.7% of employment-based Green Cards come from EB-1). In November 2014, President Obama announced that he and his administration were taking executive action to modernize the visa system. The Visa Bulletin released on September 9 was supposed to represent the modernized visa system.

Private attorneys have filed a class action lawsuit (Mehta v. DOS) in the Western District of Washington to prevent the filing dates from the revised Bulletin from superseding the original Bulletin’s dates. It essentially seeks to reinstate the filing dates from the original October Visa Bulletin. They have filed the complaint and appeared in court to request a Temporary Restraining Order on the revised Bulletin. A decision is expected today. Representatives Zoe Lofgren and Mike Honda represent the San Jose and Silicon Valley districts and have released press statements against the revision, encouraging the Department of State “to provide discretionary relief to those affected.” They also applaud the efforts of the class action suit.

For now, the thousands of individuals who thought they were finally eligible to file for their Green Cards will have to continue their waiting.