Case: Ramirez v. Dougherty

The Clearinghouse does not have access to the complaint at this time. Please note that some details may be omitted from this summary.

This case challenged a United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) decision to deny someone with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) opportunity to apply for adjustment of their status based on a spouse with U.S. citizenship. According to the court’s summation of the facts, an El Salvadorian immigrant (plaintiff) entered the United States in 1999 without being inspected, admitted, or paroled by an immigration officer. Following the Attorney General’s decision in 2001 to designate El Salvador under the Temporary Protected Status Program, the plaintiff successfully petitioned for TPS under 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(1) and had remained under TPS since.

In 2012, the plaintiff filed a Form I-485 application to adjust his status to lawful permanent resident under 8 U.S.C. § 1255(a), after his wife (a U.S. citizen and named plaintiff) filed a Form I-130 “Petition for Alien Relative” on the plaintiff’s behalf. The USCIS denied the plaintiff’s petition for lawful permanent resident status because he entered the United States without inspection and, thus, was not “inspected and admitted or paroled” into the United States as required by 8 U.S.C. § 1255(a).

On July 15, 2017, the plaintiffs filed a complaint against the Director of the USCIS, the Director of USCIS' Seattle Field Office, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Attorney General of the United States, challenging USCIS’s decision to withhold lawful permanent resident status under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Specifically, plaintiffs challenged the decision under APA § 706(1), which requires courts to “compel agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed.” The complaint was filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington and assigned to Judge Thomas S. Zilly. Plaintiffs were represented by public and private counsel.

On November 18, 2013, the defendants filed a motion for summary judgment. The plaintiffs filed a cross-motion for summary judgment on December 18, 2013.

On May 30, 2014, the court granted the plaintiff's cross-motion for summary judgment and denied the defendant’s motion for summary judgment. The court reasoned that USCIS’s decision to withhold lawful permanent resident status was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with the law, because the plaintiff met the requirements of being “inspected and admitted” under 8 U.S.C. § 1255.

The court remanded the case to the USCIS for review.

Appeal:

On July 28, 2014, the defendants appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (USCA 14-35633). Oral arguments were held on December 6, 2016.

On March 31, 2017, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s ruling. The court reasoned that the plaintiff was eligible for lawful permanent resident status because a TPS recipient is deemed to be in lawful status, satisfying the “inspection and admission” criteria for the purposes of adjustment of status. 8 U.S.C. § 1254a(f)(4).

The plaintiff filed a motion for attorneys fees in the amount of $101,761 on August 18, 2017.

Settlement:

On September 22, 2017, the defendants filed a joint motion to enter a court order implementing the parties' settlement agreement and dismiss the motion for attorney's fees as moot. Pursuant to the private settlement agreement, the court awarded Equal Access Justice Act attorneys fees' on September 29, 2017, in the amount of $56,000 and granted the defendants’ joint motion to dismiss the pending EAJA motion as moot.

The case is closed.