UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

NIKHILA REDDY SULTANPURAM,

Plaintiff, Case No. 23-cv-776 (JMC)

v.

ANTONY BLINKEN, et al.,

Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION & ORDER

When Plaintiff Nikhila Reddy Sultanpuram’s J-1 visa expired, she was required by statute

to return to her prior country of residence for two years. ECF 1 ¶ 1.1 She applied for a waiver of

that requirement because her “departure from the United States would impose exceptional hardship

upon” her U.S.-citizen spouse. Id.;

(e). Her application has been stuck in limbo

with the Department of State since February 2022.

. Sultanpuram brings this suit against

three Department of State officials—Secretary Antony Blinken, Assistant Secretary for Consular

Affairs Rena Bitter, and Chargé d’Affaires Elizabeth Jones (collectively, “Defendants” or “the

agency”)—contending that the agency has unreasonably delayed its adjudication of her waiver

application. ECF 1. Defendants move to dismiss for failure to state a claim pursuant to Federal

Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). ECF 8. For the reasons explained below, the Court will DENY

Defendants’ motion.

1 Unless otherwise indicated, the formatting of citations has been modified throughout this opinion, for example, by omitting internal quotation marks, emphases, citations, and alterations and by altering capitalization. All pincites to documents filed on the docket in this case are to the automatically generated ECF Page ID number that appears at the top of each page.

1 I. BACKGROUND

Nikhila Reddy Sultanpuram is a citizen of India who lives in Texas. ECF 1 ¶ 11. She

previously entered the United States on a J-1 visa,

, which “allows a foreign citizen to travel

to the United States in order to teach or study,” Sawahreh v. U.S. Dep’t of State,

, 157 (D.D.C. 2022). “A noncitizen who enters the United States on a J-1 visa to ‘receive

graduate medical education or training’ must commit to returning to the country of his nationality

or last residence” for at least two years “upon completion of the education or training.” Abuzeid v.

Mayorkas,

(D.C. Cir. 2023) (quoting

(j)(1)(C)). Under

Section 212(e) of the Immigration & Nationality Act (INA), a J-1 visa holder may apply for a

waiver of the two-year residency requirement if (as relevant here) “departure from the United

States would impose exceptional hardship upon” the visa-holder’s U.S.-citizen spouse or child.

(e).

In April 2021, Sultanpuram applied for a waiver of the two-year residency requirement.

ECF 1 ¶ 19. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) determined that

Sultanpuram’s spouse, a U.S. citizen serving in the Armed Forces, would suffer “exceptional

hardship” if Sultanpuram were required to leave the United States for two years.

;

ECF 9 at 7. In January 2022, USCIS forwarded her application to the Department of State’s

Waiver Review Division (WRD) which is required to “review the program, policy, and foreign

relations aspects of the case, make a recommendation, and forward it to the appropriate office at

[the Department of Homeland Security].” ECF 1 ¶ 3;

(b)(2)(ii); see Raoof v.

Sullivan,

, 38–39 (D.D.C. 2018) (describing waiver application process).

Sultanpuram’s case was “documentarily complete” by February 2, 2022. ECF 1 ¶ 3; ECF 8 at 2.

She has been waiting for an answer ever since. ECF 1 ¶¶ 4–5.

2 Sultanpuram filed this lawsuit in March 2023. ECF 1. She alleges that the State Department

has violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA),

et seq., by unreasonably

delaying its adjudication of her waiver application, and asks this Court to compel the State

Department to act.

¶¶ 30–40;

(Prayer for Relief). Sultanpuram’s J-1 status was set to

expire on June 30, 2023.

. Although she had planned to begin a medical residency program

on July 1, 2023, she alleged that she would be unable to do so without an approved waiver.

;

see ECF 1-1 (acceptance letters to residency programs). Because medical residencies are highly

competitive, “Sultanpuram is not in a position to defer her participation . . . and may not have

another opportunity to pursue the required training.” ECF 1 ¶ 7. “[I]n effect, Plaintiff’s and her

family’s lives are on hold due to Defendants’ inaction.”

.

Defendants move to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), arguing

that the delay is not unreasonable. ECF 8. Sultanpuram filed an opposition, ECF 9, and Defendants

filed a reply, ECF 10. The matter is now ripe for decision.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

To survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), “a complaint must contain sufficient

factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v.

Iqbal,

(2009). The Court “must accept as true all of the allegations contained in

a complaint,” but need not do the same for legal conclusions. Harris v. D.C. Water & Sewer Auth.,

(D.C. Cir. 2015) (quoting Iqbal,

). At bottom, the complaint must

contain allegations sufficient to permit a “reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the

misconduct alleged.” Matrixx Initiatives, Inc. v. Siracusano,

(2011) (quoting Iqbal,

).

3 III. ANALYSIS

Sultanpuram brings undue delay claims under the APA and the Mandamus Act. See ECF 1

¶ 15. Because the two claims are essentially identical in this context, the Court analyzes them

together. See Kangarloo v. Pompeo,

, 142 (D.D.C. Aug. 7, 2020).

Defendants argue that Sultanpuram’s claims should be dismissed because the agency’s

delay is not unreasonable.2 ECF 8. Courts in this Circuit evaluate six factors, known as the “TRAC

factors,” to determine whether agency action is unreasonably delayed:

(1) [T]he time agencies take to make decisions must be governed by a “rule of reason”; (2) where Congress has provided a timetable or other indication of the speed with which it expects the agency to proceed in the enabling statute, that statutory scheme may supply content for this rule of reason; (3) delays that might be reasonable in the sphere of economic regulation are less tolerable when human health and welfare are at stake; (4) the court should consider the effect of expediting delayed action on agency activities of a higher or competing priority; (5) the court should also take into account the nature and extent of the interests prejudiced by delay; and (6) the court need not “find any impropriety lurking behind agency lassitude in order to hold that agency action is ‘unreasonably delayed.’”

In re United Mine Workers of Am. Int’l Union,

(D.C. Cir. 1999) (quoting

Telecomms. Rsch. & Action Ctr. v. FCC,

(D.C. Cir. 1984) (TRAC)). These factors

guide the unreasonable-delay analysis, but are not exclusive. Da Costa v. Immigr. Inv. Program

2 The parties disagree about the length of the agency’s delay. Defendants argue that the agency has delayed only 13.5 months—the period between the government’s last action on Sultanpuram’s waiver request (February 2, 2022) and the date she filed suit (March 23, 2023). ECF 8 at 2. Sultanpuram counters that, at the time she filed her opposition, her waiver request had been pending for at least 26 months—from April 2021 to June 2023. ECF 9 at 5, 8–9; see ECF 1 ¶ 19. As of this writing, is has been approximately 44 months since Sultanpuram applied for a waiver. There is some disagreement in this District about how to properly calculate the unreasonable delay period. Compare Brzezinski v. U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., No. 21-CV-376,

, at *4 n.3 (D.D.C. Sept. 15, 2021), with Barazandeh v. U.S. Dep’t of State, No. 23-CV-1581,

, at *7 n.7 (D.D.C. Jan. 30, 2024). But the Court need not resolve this dispute today. Whether the delay lasted 13.5 or 44 months, the Court would conclude—for the reasons laid out below—that it cannot grant Defendants’ motion to dismiss.

4 Off.,

(D.C. Cir. 2023). In immigration cases, the first and fourth factors carry

the greatest weight.

Unlike many of the cases in this District alleging unreasonable delay in the immigration

context, this case does not concern an application for a visa. It centers instead on an application

for a waiver of the home residency requirement.3 The parties have identified no on-point caselaw

concerning this sort of application, and there is no factual record before the Court that would

suggest visa mandamus cases are analogous and therefore persuasive. Furthermore, Sultanpuram

plausibly alleges that the State Department’s delay has done real harm to her family and her

education. The Court therefore finds that the first five TRAC factors weigh against dismissal, and

will accordingly deny Defendants’ motion to dismiss.

A. Factors 1 and 2

The first TRAC factor is the “most important”: whether the time the agency takes to make

a decision is governed by a “rule of reason.” In re Core Commc’ns, Inc.,

(D.C.

Cir. 2008). Sometimes—as the second TRAC factor provides—a “statutory scheme may supply

content for this rule of reason,” but the parties agree that is not the case here.4 In re United Mine

Workers of Am. Int’l Union,

; see ECF 8 at 5; ECF 9 at 12. The Court must

therefore determine whether there is nonetheless “‘any rhyme or reason’ for the Government’s

delay—in other words, ‘whether the agency’s response time . . . is governed by an identifiable

rationale.’” Desai v. USCIS, No. 20-CV-1005,

, at *5 (D.D.C. Mar. 22, 2021)

(quoting Ctr. for Sci. in the Pub. Interest v. FDA,

(D.D.C. 2014)).

3 For ease of reference, the Court refers to this application as a “residency-waiver application.” 4 The Court therefore analyzes the first and second factors together. See Milligan v. Pompeo,

, 317 (D.D.C. 2020).

5 The D.C. Circuit has cautioned that whether the agency employs a rule of reason “cannot

be decided in the abstract, by reference to some number of months or years beyond which agency

inaction is presumed to be unlawful, but will depend in large part . . . upon the complexity of the

task at hand, the significance (and permanence) of the outcome, and the resources available to the

agency.” Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council, Inc. v. Norton,

(D.C.

Cir. 2003). Despite the fact-intensive nature of these considerations, “[t]here is no categorical

prohibition on deciding unreasonable-delay claims at the motion-to-dismiss stage.” Da Costa v.

Immigr. Inv. Program Off.,

, 12 (D.D.C. 2022), aff’d,

(D.C.

Cir. 2023). Rather, “the question of whether discovery is necessary depends, as with any sort of

claim, on the particular Complaint. If a ‘record contains enough facts to evaluate the TRAC factors’

at that point, then a Court may appropriately decide to do just that.”

(quoting Sarlak v. Pompeo,

No. 20-CV-35,

, at *5 (D.D.C. June 10, 2020)).

Drawing all reasonable inferences in her favor, Sultanpuram has plausibly alleged that

Defendants have no “rule of reason”: the State Department has taken no action on her application

since February 2022 and has provided no reason that “would merit the need for [this length] of

processing time.” ECF 1 ¶¶ 4, 28. Nothing in the record contradicts that allegation. As noted above,

the parties agree that no statute or regulation supplies content for a rule of reason. See ECF 8 at 5;

ECF 9 at 12. And unlike in other cases where defendants offered up some “identifiable rationale”

that governed the agency’s response time, Desai,

, at *5 (quoting Ctr. for Sci.

in the Pub. Interest,

), Defendants make no such attempt here. See ECF 8

at 4–6; cf. Desai,

, at *5 (concluding that “first in, first out” rule qualifies as a

“rule of reason”); Da Costa,

(“USCIS’s rule of reason calls for processing

Form I-526 petitions from nationals of countries as to which visas are currently available in the

6 order in which those petitions were received.”); Arabzada v. Donis, No. 23-CV-655,

, at *14 (D.D.C. Mar. 19, 2024) (finding that USCIS’s “last-in-first-out” policy is a “rule

of reason”); Xiaobing Liu v. Blinken,

, 11 (D.D.C. 2021) (concluding that State

Department policy of “prioritizing immediate relative visa applicants and K-1 fiancées of U.S.

citizens, followed by family preference immigrant visa applicants,” although unfavorable to

plaintiffs, was a sufficient “rule of reason”).

Courts may also consider “facts of which [they] may take judicial notice,” alongside the

facts alleged in the complaint, to assess whether a plaintiff has plausibly alleged an unreasonable

delay claim. Da Costa, 643 F. Supp. 3d at 12. In other unreasonable-delay cases, for example,

courts have considered judicially noticeable facts about the size of the applicant pool, the sorts of

policy concerns the agency must weigh in making its decisions, and to what degree the COVID-19

pandemic continues to delay processing. See, e.g., Ghadami v. DHS, No. 19-CV-397,

, at *8 (D.D.C. Mar. 19, 2020) (delay not unreasonable where defendants “point[ed] to

statistics showing that the State Department is reviewing approximately 12,000 [travel ban] waiver

applications from multiple countries while weighing national security concerns, personal hardship

issues, and potential national benefit”); Akrayi v. U.S. Dep’t of State, No. 22-CV-1289,

, at *4 (D.D.C. Mar. 9, 2023) (delay not unreasonable where the “pandemic continues to

severely impact the number of visas . . . embassies and consulates abroad are able to process,” and

“[t]here are currently 444,828 applicants, like [the plaintiff’s wife], who are awaiting interviews

as of January 31, 2023.”). But Defendants do not point the Court to any judicially noticeable facts

to suggest that they employ a rule of reason. See Al-Gharawy v. DHS,

, 18–19

(D.D.C. 2022) (denying motion to dismiss unreasonable delay claims where defendants “d[id] not

7 provide sufficient information for the Court to conclude, at the motion to dismiss stage, that [their]

delay is based on a rule of reason.”).

Instead, Defendants ask the Court to rely on the large body of caselaw in this District

concerning unreasonable delay in the context of visa applications. See ECF 8 at 5. When it comes

to visa applications, courts generally find that delays between three and five years are not

unreasonable, see Sarlak,

, at *6 (collecting cases), and the D.C. Circuit has

held that a four-and-half-year delay in processing a visa petition was not unreasonable, see Da

Costa,

. But Defendants have made no arguments to persuade the Court that visa

applications are analogous to residency waivers like the one Sultanpuram seeks. Perhaps

processing a residency-waiver application and processing a visa application are similarly complex

tasks and similarly tax agency resources. See Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council, Inc.,

(requiring the court to evaluate “the complexity of the task at hand . . . and the resources

available to the agency”). But it is also possible that the two processes are not meaningfully similar.

See ECF 9 at 14 (“Immigrant visas and asylum cases are by no means even remotely similar to the

waiver of the two-year home residency requirement.”). Perhaps there are fewer residency-waiver

applicants, or fewer steps the agency must complete to adjudicate a home residency waiver. If that

is the case, a 44-month (or 13.5-month) delay that would be reasonable in the visa context might

be unreasonable here. But the Court cannot tell one way or the other, because the record contains

no facts about the residency-waiver application process.5

Finally, neither party points the Court to any case evaluating unreasonable delay in

processing a residency-waiver application, nor is the Court aware of such a case. See ECF 8 at 5–

5 There might also be some persuasive legal argument that residency-waiver applications are similar (as a matter of law) to visa petitions for purposes of an unreasonable-delay analysis—but if such an argument exists, the agency has not presented it. See ECF 8 at 4–6; ECF 10 at 3–5.

8 6; ECF 9 at 13–14; ECF 10 at 4 (recognizing that the cases the government cites “do not

specifically concern applications for waiver of the home residency requirement”).

The Court concludes that Sultanpuram has plausibly alleged that the time Defendants take

to adjudicate residency-waiver applications is not governed by a “rule of reason.” Defendants point

to no judicially-noticeable facts or relevant caselaw that suggests otherwise. Therefore, this “most

important” factor, In re Core Commc’ns, Inc.,

, weighs against dismissal.

B. Factor 4

The fourth TRAC factor requires the Court to “consider the effect of expediting delayed

action on agency activities of a higher or competing priority.” TRAC,

. Courts in this

District decline to compel agency action “where a judicial order putting the petitioner at the head

of the queue would simply move all others back one space and produce no net gain.” Da Costa,

643 F. Supp. 3d at 15. In the context of visa applications, this is almost always the case: the

government prioritizes visa petitions in some way—perhaps based on when the petition was filed,

the type of petition, or some other factor—and judicial intervention would allow the plaintiff to

jump that line. See Da Costa,

(“Because USCIS prioritizes adjudication based on

the date a petition was filed, . . . a court order requiring USCIS to adjudicate the Plaintiffs’ Form

I-526 petitions would move them ahead of longer-pending petitions.”). But here, Defendants have

not even argued that there is any such line. See ECF 8 at 6–8. Nor have they pointed the Court to

any judicially noticeable facts that suggest such a line exists. See

Instead, Defendants list the

many cases in this District, all of which concern visa applications, where courts have declined to

allow plaintiffs to jump the line. See

As the Court has already explained, Defendants have failed

to make any robust argument that those cases are analogous; it has simply assumed that they are.

9 In Al-Gharawy v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the court similarly found that it

lacked “any evidence indicating whether such a reordering [of the applicant queue] would occur.”

617 F. Supp. 3d at 19. The defendants attempted to rely (as they do here) on cases that raised

serious concerns about line-jumping—but those cases “involved more detailed factual showings

describing the queue of applications, their backlogs, and thus the challenges of granting relief.” Id.

Several of the decisions “rel[ied] on government declarations to establish the complexities of

moving an applicant to the front of the application queue.” Id. Because the Al-Gharawy court

lacked that sort of information, it did not find those cases persuasive. Id. This Court faces the same

problem: it cannot say, on the record before it, whether ordering Defendants to adjudicate

Sultanpuram’s application would displace an applicant ahead of her in line. The fourth TRAC

factor therefore weighs against dismissal.

To be clear, this decision is a narrow one. The Court recognizes that “[t]he agency is in a

unique—and authoritative—position to view its projects as a whole, estimate the prospects for

each, and allocate its resources in the optimal way.” In re Barr Labs.,

(D.C.

Cir. 1991). Defendants need only offer some argument that the agency is in fact exercising its

discretion to “allocate its resources in the optimal way.”

They have not done so.

C. Factors 3 and 5

The third and fifth TRAC factors overlap, in that both consider the impact of the agency’s

delay on the plaintiff. See Liberty Fund v. Chao,

(D.D.C. 2005). “The

third looks to whether ‘human health and welfare are at stake’—in which case judicial intervention

is more justified—and the fifth assesses the ‘nature and extent of the interests prejudiced by

delay.’” Milligan v. Pompeo,

, 319 (D.D.C. 2020) (quoting TRAC,

).

10 Sultanpuram plausibly alleges that the State Department’s delay has caused her real,

tangible harm. Without an approved waiver, she was unable to begin her medical residency

program and may not have another chance to pursue this highly-competitive training opportunity.

ECF 1 ¶¶ 6–7. Another agency, USCIS, has already determined that Sultanpuram’s U.S.-citizen

spouse would suffer “exceptional hardship” absent a waiver. Id. ¶¶ 1, 21; see Milligan, 502 F.

Supp. 3d at 319 (finding that extended separation from a spouse impacted “human health and

welfare”); Ahmed v. DHS, No. 21-CV-893,

, at *6 (D.D.C. Feb. 11, 2022)

(same). The third and fifth TRAC factors therefore weigh against dismissal.

D. Factor 6

The sixth TRAC factor provides that the court need not “find any impropriety lurking

behind agency lassitude in order to hold that agency action is ‘unreasonably delayed.’” TRAC,

. Because Sultanpuram does not allege any such impropriety, see ECF 9 at 17, this factor

is neutral. See Da Costa, 80 F.4th at 345–46 (finding sixth TRAC factor to be neutral where

plaintiffs did not plausibly allege impropriety).

* * *

In sum: TRAC factors one through five weigh against dismissal, and factor six is neutral.

The TRAC factors counsel against dismissing Sultanpuram’s case at this early stage of the

litigation. See Al-Gharawy, 617 F. Supp. 3d at 18 (“[T]he Court lacks a sufficient basis to hold, at

the motion to dismiss stage, that Plaintiffs have failed to state a plausible claim of unreasonable

delay.”).

* * *

For the foregoing reasons, Defendants’ motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim,

ECF 8, is DENIED. Defendants shall file an answer to Plaintiff’s complaint by January 17, 2025.

11 SO ORDERED.

__________________________ JIA M. COBB United States District Judge Date: December 20, 2024

12