The Issue

In Casa Libre v. Mayorkas, No. 2:22-cv-01510-ODW (JPRx), 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 91941 (C.D. Cal. May 25, 2023), the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law (CHRCL), alongside co-counsel, challenged USCIS over its significant delays in adjudicating Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) petitions, causing final adjudications to exceed  the 180-day timeline mandated by law. SIJ visas provide a pathway to citizenship for children who have been abused, abandoned, or neglected by at least one parent, allowing undocumented children without family support and without any caregiver to live within their home country to get work authorization, which is especially urgent for children aging out of foster care or group homes. Recognizing this urgency, Congress mandated that USCIS adjudicate these petitions within 180 days [8 U.S.C § 1232], ensuring that children get work authorization promptly rather than face homelessness upon aging out of their residence. 

Despite the legal requirements to adjudicate USCIS SIJ petitions within 180 days, USCIS continued to delay SIJ petitions and published a regulation that explicitly allowed it to “toll” the 180-day deadline when it issued a Request for Evidence (RFE) because it determined a petition was incomplete.

The Center also brought an Equal Protection claim after months of advocacy for interim benefits for SIJ petitioners. The day before the complaint was filed, USCIS issued new regulations providing deferred action and work authorization to youth who had approved SIJ petitions but for whom a visa wasn’t available. This underscored the importance of stopping USICS’s practice of delaying adjudication - and thereby delaying the benefits that children aging out of foster care and group homes needed urgently.

While the court ruled that classwide relief could not be granted under the APA, it underscored the legal obligation of USCIS to promptly adjudicate SIJ petitions. In a related case, Moreno Galvez v. Cuccinelli, classwide relief was granted to Washington SIJ petitioners challenging blanket delays, acknowledging that delays were unreasonable and resulted from USCIS policy rather than individualized case assessments. On the Center’s second claim, CHRCL successfully challenged USCIS’s unlawful tolling practices, and the Judge found that the tolling regulation was contrary to law.