UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
)
MUHAMMAD TAYYAB SHAHEEN, et al., )
)
Plaintiffs, )
)
v. )
) Case No. 25-cv-01186 (APM)
MARCO A. RUBIO, )
in his official capacity as U.S. Secretary of State, )
et al., )
)
Defendants. )
_________________________________________ )
MEMORANDUM OPINION
I.
On October 30, 2025, this court denied Defendants’ motion to dismiss Plaintiffs’ petition
seeking to compel action on Plaintiff Uzair Abbas’s visa application, which was temporarily
“refused” on or around February 29, 2024, and has remained in administrative processing ever
since. 1 See Mem. Op. & Order, ECF No. 9, at 1, 3. Defendants at that time argued only that (1)
the D.C. Circuit’s opinion in Karimova v. Abate, No. 23-cv-5178, (D.C. Cir. July 24, 2024) (per
curiam), incontrovertibly held that a consular officer has no duty to act on a visa application held
in administrative processing and (2) Plaintiffs’ claims were barred by the doctrine of consular
nonreviewability. See id. at 2. This court disagreed. It ruled that Karimova held only that section
555(b) of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) did not place a “clear, non-discretionary duty”
1
The two other Plaintiffs are Muhammed Tayyab Shaheen and Shazia Waseem. Plaintiff Shaheen is a U.S. citizen and, in 2006, filed an I-130 petition on behalf of his sister, Plaintiff Waseem. Compl., ECF No. 1, ¶¶ 23, 25, 60. Plaintiff Abbas is one of Waseem’s children and a derivative applicant for the immigrant visa. Id. ¶ 24. Following an interview with a consular officer on February 29, 2024, Waseem and all her children but Abbas received visas. Id. ¶¶ 66–69; Answer, ECF No. 11, ¶¶ 66–69. Abbas’s application remains in administrative processing. Compl. ¶¶ 69– 74. For ease of reference, the court refers to the Abbas’s outstanding derivative status simply as “Abbas’s visa application.”
on a consular officer to “re-adjudicate [an] already-refused application,” without holding the same
for any other source of law. Id. at 2–3 (alteration in original) (quoting Karimova, 2024 WL
3517852, at *3). The court also observed that courts in this District have “repeatedly” held that
consular nonreviewability does not shield from review an agency’s inaction on a visa application.
See id. at 3.
Defendants now move for judgment on the pleadings on the sole basis that there has been
no unreasonable agency delay in adjudicating Plaintiff Abbas’s visa application under the factors
set forth in Telecommunications Research & Action Center v. FCC (TRAC), 750 F.2d 70, 80
(D.C. Cir. 1984), commonly called the “TRAC factors.” See Defs.’ Mot. for J. on the Pleadings,
ECF No. 14 [hereinafter Defs.’ Mot.], at 6–16. In response, Plaintiffs argue that an unreasonabledelay determination is inappropriate without the benefit of an administrative record and, in any
event, the TRAC factors support a finding of unreasonable delay. See Pls.’ Resp. in Opp’n to Defs.’
Mot., ECF No. 17 [hereinafter Pls.’ Opp’n], at 5–19. For the reasons that follow, Defendants’
Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings is granted.
II.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c) permits any party to move for judgment on the
pleadings “[a]fter the pleadings are closed—but early enough not to delay trial.” The court applies
the same standard governing a Rule 12(b)(6) motion when evaluating a Rule 12(c) motion.
ACF Renewable Energy Ltd. v. Republic of Bulgaria, 804 F. Supp. 3d 141, 148 (D.D.C. 2025).
To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, 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, 556 U.S. 662,
678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). A claim is facially
plausible when “the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable
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inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. The court must “construe
the complaint in favor of the plaintiff, who must be granted the benefit of all inferences that can
be derived from the facts alleged.” Hettinga v. United States, 677 F.3d 471, 476 (D.C. Cir. 2012)
(internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
III.
To state a claim for unreasonable delay under the APA, see 5 U.S.C. § 706(1), a plaintiff
must plausibly allege that (1) “the agency failed to take a discrete agency action that it is required
to take” and (2) “the delay was unreasonable.” Da Costa v. Immigr. Inv. Program Off., 80 F.4th
330, 340 (D.C. Cir. 2023) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Defendants address
only the latter requirement. See Defs.’ Mot. at 6–16. The court therefore will assume the first
criteria is satisfied and focus solely on the second. When determining whether a delay in agency
action is unreasonable, the court is guided by the familiar six TRAC factors:
(1) the 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 the agency action is unreasonably delayed.
TRAC, 750 F.2d at 80 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
To begin, Plaintiffs’ threshold argument that the court should not consider the unreasonable
delay factors because the case is at a motion for judgment on the pleadings is unavailing. See Pls.’
Opp’n at 5–10. A plaintiff must plausibly “allege that . . . the delay was unreasonable” at the
pleadings stage. See Da Costa, 80 F.4th at 340. While the unreasonable delay analysis under
3
TRAC is indeed a fact-intensive inquiry, see Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council, Inc. v. Norton,
336 F.3d 1094, 1100 (D.C. Cir. 2003), a plaintiff does not “automatically survive[] a motion to
dismiss by merely alleging that a processing delay is unreasonable” and remains “subject to the
standard for pleadings under Twombly and Iqbal,” Ahmed v. U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., No. 21-cv-893 (APM), 2022 WL 424967, at *5 (D.D.C. Feb. 11, 2022). The contrary, out-of-circuit
decisions that Plaintiffs offer are outweighed by “the majority of authority in this jurisdiction
demonstrat[ing] that it is appropriate to apply the TRAC factors at the motion to dismiss stage.”
Vafaei v. U.S. Citizenship & Immigr. Servs., No. 22-cv-1608 (CKK), 2024 WL 1213394, at *3
(D.D.C. Mar. 21, 2024) (collecting cases). 2 Indeed, the D.C. Circuit in Da Costa affirmed that
approach by affirming dismissals of two visa-adjudication, unreasonable delay actions for failure
to state a claim. See Da Costa, 80 F.4th at 338–340. The court therefore may consider the TRAC
factors without reliance on an administrative record.
First and second factors. The first two factors, “relating to whether Congress has imposed
a timeline for the agency action,” are often considered together and, here, favor Defendants.
See Bagherian v. Pompeo, 442 F. Supp. 3d 87, 95 (D.D.C. 2020). “There is no congressionally
imposed timeline here,” and courts in this District have repeatedly affirmed that “Congress has
given the agencies wide discretion in the area of immigration processing.” Id. (quoting Skalka v.
Kelly, 246 F. Supp. 3d 147, 153–54 (D.D.C. 2017)).
Resisting this outcome, Plaintiffs cite 8 U.S.C. § 1571(b), which expresses “the sense of
Congress that the processing of an immigration benefit application should be completed not later
2
Plaintiffs further highlight the D.C. Circuit’s observation that TRAC was “brought under a claim for writ of mandamus, not APA relief.” Pls.’ Opp’n at 6 (citing Afghan & Iraqi Allies v. Blinken, 103 F.4th 807, 815 (D.C. Cir. 2024)). But, in that very paragraph, the D.C. Circuit continued that it has “routinely applied the same [TRAC] framework to assess claims that agency action has been ‘unreasonably delayed’ for purposes of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706(1).” Afghan & Iraqi Allies, 103 F.4th at 815.
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than 180 days after the initial filing.” Pls.’ Opp’n at 13. But the D.C. Circuit has described
§ 1571(b) as an “aspirational statement” and thus “insufficient to set a deadline.” Da Costa,
80 F.4th at 344. Section 1571(b) provides a “ruler against which the agency’s progress must be
measured,” but it does not tip factors one and two in Plaintiffs’ favor. See id. (cleaned up).
Plaintiffs also cite 9 FAM § 504.7-2(b), which advises consular departments to “strive” towards a
“30/60-day” visa processing time. Pls.’ Opp’n at 14. That is likewise an aspirational statement
that does not set concrete parameters for visa adjudication.
Plaintiffs further point to 22 C.F.R. § 42.81(e), which states that “[i]f a visa is refused, and
the applicant within one year from the date of refusal adduces further evidence tending to
overcome the ground of ineligibility on which the refusal was based, the case shall be
reconsidered.” They argue that the regulation “presupposes a duty to first adjudicate the visa
application within one year, and if the visa was refused, a duty to reconsider the application within
twelve months if further evidence is submitted.” Pls.’ Opp’n at 14. But the plain text of that
regulation establishes a one-year window for the applicant to cure any defects and secure
reconsideration. It does not require the consular officer to reconsider the application within any
defined period once such information is submitted.
Finally, Plaintiffs—relying on a 2024 declaration by Carson Wu, then the Acting Director
of the Office of Screening, Analysis, and Coordination in the Bureau of Consular Affairs’ Visa
Services Office—contend that, because processing an application refused under Section 221(g)
involves a request for a security advisory opinion (“SAO”) that is not “addressed or resolved in a
first-in-first-out or last-in-first-out basis,” the visa adjudication process “does not follow a rule of
reason.” Id. at 12 (citing Compl., ECF No. 1 [hereinafter Compl.], Ex. A, ECF No. 1-3 [hereinafter
Wu Decl.]). The Wu Declaration explains the “prescribed steps” consular officers must take when
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evaluating refused or flagged visa applications and the factors that affect completion of SAO
requests, such as “the extent of review and coordination required, the amount of derogatory
information, which other agencies have responsive information, the timing of when each partner
agency completes its review” and other “emergent circumstances.” See Wu Decl. ¶¶ 15, 27.
Plaintiffs do not, however, explain how this processing approach is unreasonable, even if
it does not proceed on a “first-in-first-out” basis. Indeed, whether agency review rigidly proceeds
on a “first-in-first-out” basis is not dispositive for whether the adjudication follows a rule of reason.
See, e.g., Da Costa, 80 F.4th at 337. As another court in this District observed about the
Wu Declaration, it makes clear “that Defendants have a plan in place to adjudicate SAO requests,
that the process, albeit complicated, operates based on a rule of reason, and that establishing a
required timeframe for the adjudication of an individual request is necessarily difficult—all of
which weigh in favor of Defendants under the first TRAC factor.” Shoaie v. Blinken, No. 24-cv1513 (GMH), 2024 WL 4697732, at *10 (D.D.C. Nov. 6, 2024); see also Mosayebian v. Blinken,
No. 24-cv-130 (JLS), 2024 WL 3558378, at *9 (S.D. Cal. July 25, 2024). 3 This court agrees.
“Absent a congressionally supplied yardstick, courts typically turn to case law as a guide.”
Sarlak v. Pompeo, No. 20-cv-35 (BAH), 2020 WL 3082018, at *6 (D.D.C. June 10, 2020). District
“courts have generally found that immigration delays in excess of five, six, seven years are
unreasonable, while those between three to five years are often not unreasonable.” Id. (internal
quotation marks omitted). Here, approximately 29 months have passed between February 2024,
when Plaintiff Abbas’s application was “refused,” and the date of this opinion. 4 That delay is
3
Plaintiffs gesture to an additional declaration from Defendant Robert Jachim, but the content of that declaration is nearly identical to the Wu Declaration and, therefore, likewise does not support their argument. See Pls.’ Opp’n at 13; Pls.’ Resp. in Opp’n to Mot. to Dismiss, ECF No. 6, Ex. A, ECF No. 6-2.
4
Plaintiffs also aver that the “delay is especially unreasonable because the consular officer told Plaintiff Abbas the visa was approved” and it “wasn’t until Plaintiff Abbas later inquired at the Embassy on his own that he was told about the administrative processing.” Pls.’ Opp’n at 12–13. But Plaintiffs cite no case law for the proposition that learning an application has been placed in administrative processing later in time has any bearing on unreasonable delay.
6
within the range of reasonableness. See, e.g., Da Costa, 80 F.4th at 344 (finding that the multiyear passage of time in that case “has not reached the level of disproportionality [the Circuit has]
previously held sufficient to grant relief”). The first two factors thus weigh in favor of Defendants.
Fourth factor. The fourth TRAC factor—the effect of competing agency priorities—carries
substantial weight in many cases. See Milligan v. Pompeo, 502 F. Supp. 3d 302, 319 (D.D.C.
2020). In Da Costa, the D.C. Circuit concluded that this factor “strongly disfavor[ed]” the
plaintiffs because moving their “petitions to the front of the line would disrupt competing agency
priorities with no overall improvement in the [agency’s] backlog.” 80 F.4th at 343. So too here.
Fulfilling Plaintiffs’ request simply would move Plaintiff Abbas “ahead of longer-pending
petitions.” Id. No matter where he lies in the queue, the relief Plaintiffs seek would “inevitably
entail a ‘judicial reordering’ of the Department’s priorities.” Khazaei v. Blinken, No. 23-cv-1419
(JEB), 2023 WL 6065095, at *7 (D.D.C. Sept. 18, 2023).
In response, Plaintiffs argue that Defendants have provided no evidence of a “queue” of
applications that would require Defendants to “reorder” applicants if required to resolve Plaintiff
Abbas’s pending visa application. Pls.’ Opp’n at 15. And if there were a queue, they contend,
Plaintiff Abbas should “be at the front” given the length of processing. Id. In support, Plaintiffs
point to the decisions of courts outside this jurisdiction. Id. at 15–18. But Plaintiffs’ arguments
have repeatedly been rejected by courts in this District. See Shoaie, 2024 WL 4697732, at *12–
13 (collecting cases and observing that other judges in this District have determined that the fourth
factor “weighs in favor of the government in cases involving Section 221(g) refusals . . . even
when no formal queue has been established by the defendant”). Even if processing does not
proceed linearly, Plaintiffs’ requested relief would nonetheless require diverting resources from
other applications, and the court cannot override the agency’s “unique—and authoritative—
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position to view its projects as a whole, estimate the prospects for each, and allocate its resources
in the optimal way.” In re Barr Lab’ys, Inc., 930 F. 2d 72, 76 (D.C. Cir. 1991). Additionally,
Plaintiffs offer no evidence establishing where Plaintiff Abbas “stands in the processing queue,”
so their contention that he should be at the front is “entirely speculative.” Tekle v. Blinken, No. 21-cv-1655 (APM), 2022 WL 1288437, at *4 (D.D.C. Apr. 29, 2022). The fourth factor thus “weighs
against judicial intervention to expedite adjudication.” Da Costa, 80 F.4th at 344.
Third and fifth factors. The overlapping third and fifth TRAC factors consider whether
“human health and welfare are at stake” and the “nature and extent of the interests prejudiced by
delay.” TRAC, 750 F.2d at 80. Plaintiffs claim harms of many kinds, including “family separation,
travel costs, financial strain, medical issues, anxiety and depression, and other hardships.”
Compl. ¶ 78. 5 Plaintiff Abbas’s parents describe the hardship they continue to endure from the
separation and the absence of their son’s emotional and financial support as they age. See Compl.,
Ex. F, ECF No. 1-8, at 1–2. This court does not take lightly familial separation caused by
government inaction and inefficiency. It “reminds the government that it must treat [Plaintiffs’]
case with ‘the sense of urgency one would expect when familial interests are at stake.’” Bagherian,
442 F. Supp. 3d at 95 (quoting Skalka, 246 F. Supp. 3d at 154). On balance, these factors tip
slightly in Plaintiffs’ favor. Cf. Da Costa, 80 F.4th at 345 (finding that factors three and five did
not favor the plaintiffs where one group alleged financial harms and the other, although asserting
harms to health and welfare, failed to link those harms to the delayed adjudication).
5
Plaintiffs also note their “unique circumstances given the harsh geopolitical realities and uprising in Iran that threaten Plaintiff Abbas’[s] safety given his desire to emigrate” and fear of Presidential Proclamation 10998, which suspends entry for foreign nationals from certain countries, including Iran. Pls.’ Opp’n at 4, 15. Abbas, however, appears to be from Pakistan and currently resides in Germany. Compl. at 1 (case caption). Plaintiffs have not explained how the situation in Iran is relevant to his circumstances, nor have they explained how “harsh geopolitical realities between the U.S. and Pakistan” bear on his wellbeing aside from a speculative concern that the entry of Pakistani nationals could be suspended. See id. ¶¶ 119–120.
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Sixth factor. Finally, the sixth factor reminds the court that it “need not find any
impropriety lurking behind agency lassitude in order to hold that agency action is unreasonably
delayed.” TRAC, 750 F.2d at 80 (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, Plaintiffs allege no
facts suggesting that the agency acted improperly, aside from the delay itself, so this factor is
neutral. Pls.’ Opp’n at 18–19; see Khan v. Bitter, No. 23-cv-1576 (BAH), 2024 WL 756643, at
*6 (D.D.C. Feb. 23, 2024) (explaining that “delay alone does not demonstrate any agency
misconduct”).
* * *
After weighing all the TRAC factors, the court finds that Plaintiffs have failed to state a
claim for unreasonable delay under the APA. The court sympathizes with the hardship caused by
the length of time without final adjudication and the ensuing uncertainty, but this hardship is
outweighed by the rule of reason supplied by caselaw and the fact that granting relief would be at
the expense of others. The mandamus claim also is dismissed because the APA provides an
adequate remedy at law. See Fornaro v. James, 416 F.3d 63, 69 (D.C. Cir. 2005).
IV.
For the foregoing reasons, Defendants’ Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings,
ECF No. 14, is granted. A final, appealable order accompanies this Memorandum Opinion.
Dated: August 17, 2026 Amit P. Mehta
United States District Judge
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