Dali v. Uscis Headquarters

• Court: District Court, District of Columbia
• Decided: April 17, 2026
• Docket: Civil Action No. 2025-4156
• Status: Published

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

SVETLANA DALI, ) ) Plaintiff, ) ) v. ) Civil Action No. 1:25-cv-04156 (UNA) ) ) USCIS HEADQUARTERS, et al., ) ) ) Defendants. )

MEMORANDUM OPINION

This matter, brought pro se, is before the Court on review of the Complaint, ECF No. 1,

and Plaintiff’s Application for Leave to Proceed in forma pauperis (“IFP”), ECF No. 2. The Court

will grant IFP Application and, for the reasons explained below, it dismisses this case without

prejudice.

Plaintiff sues “USCIS Headquarters (DHS)”––even though the U.S. Citizenship and

Immigration Services and the Department of Homeland Security are different agencies––and

“USPS Post Office Services.” See Compl. at 2. The alleged wrongdoing of the Postal Service, if

any, is unclear. See Compl. at 2. The Complaint is vague, and its allegations are difficult to

discern. As best understood, it appears that Plaintiff challenges USCIS’s decision not to expedite

her Form I-751 petitions to remove conditions on residence. See id. at 3–4. She then pivots,

broadly alleging that her “Requests for FOIA [were] blocked many times.” See id. at 4.

Pro se litigants must comply with the applicable Rules of Civil Procedure. See Jarrell v.

Tisch, 656 F. Supp. 237, 239–40 (D.D.C. 1987). Relevant here, Federal Rule 8(a) requires

complaints to contain “(1) a short and plain statement of the grounds for the court’s jurisdiction

[and] (2) a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a); see Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678–79 (2009); Ciralsky v. CIA, 355 F.3d

661, 668–71 (D.C. Cir. 2004). The Rule 8(a) standard ensures that defendants receive fair notice

of the claims asserted so that they can prepare a responsive answer and an adequate defense and

determine whether the doctrine of res judicata applies. Brown v. Califano, 75 F.R.D. 497, 498

(D.D.C. 1977). Additionally, “each allegation [in a pleading] must be simple, concise, and

direct[,]” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(d)(1), and Plaintiff’s allegations simply cannot be described that way.

Indeed, courts have “unhesitatingly dismissed actions where the complaint” fails to comply

with Federal Rule 8, including those that characterized as “confusing, ambiguous, redundant,

vague and, in some respects, unintelligible.” See Brown, 75 F.R.D. at 499 (collecting cases)

(citation omitted). Moreover, Federal Rule 12(b)(6) authorizes dismissal of claims without any

legal basis, “without regard to whether [the claims are] based on an outlandish legal theory or on

a close but ultimately unavailing one.” Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 327 (1989); see also

Baker v. Dir., U.S. Parole Comm’n, 916 F.2d 725, 727 (D.C. Cir. 1990) (per curiam) (authorizing

sua sponte dismissal for failure to state a claim). Here, Plaintiff’s Complaint is largely devoid of

substantive factual allegations. It contains mainly conclusory statements and ambiguous

assertions; therefore, neither the Court nor Defendants can clearly identify the nature of Plaintiff’s

intended claims, or determine whether she is entitled to any relief. Indeed, the relief sought, if

any, is unspecified.

Insofar as Plaintiff challenges Defendants’ responses to FOIA request(s), she does not

adequately allege that a particular agency has improperly withheld records responsive to a properly

submitted FOIA request. See Marcusse v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice Office of Info. Policy, 959 F. Supp.

2d 130, 140 (D.D.C. 2013). The Complaint neither references a FOIA request number or any other details relating to any requests that Plaintiff submitted, nor does it contain any other relevant

information, e.g, a copy of the actual requests submitted.

With respect to Plaintiff’s petitions to USCIS, Plaintiff has also fallen short. Although

Plaintiff does not cite to it, the Court notes that Administrative Procedures Act (“APA”) requires

agencies to “proceed to conclude a matter presented to [them]” in a “reasonable time,” 5 U.S.C. §

555(b), and authorizes reviewing courts to review an agency’s alleged “failure to act,” see id. §

551(13), including compelling an “agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed,”

see id. § 706(1). “Failures to act are sometimes remediable under the APA, but not always.” Norton

v. S. Utah Wilderness All., 542 U.S. 55, 61 (2004). “Resolution of a claim of unreasonable delay

is ordinarily a complicated and nuanced task requiring consideration of the particular facts and

circumstance before the court.” Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council, Inc. v. Norton, 336 F.3d

1094, 1100 (D.C. Cir. 2003). “There is no per se rule as to how long is too long to wait for agency

action,” In re Am. Rivers & Idaho Rivers United, 372 F.3d 413, 419 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (internal

quotation marks omitted), but in determining whether a delay in agency action is unreasonable,

the Court applies six overarching factors, see Telecomms. Rsch. & Action Ctr. v. FCC, 750 F.2d

70, 80 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (listing the “TRAC” factors).

Here, Plaintiff does not address these factors, let alone meet them, and she does not

otherwise provide enough information for the Court to independently assess them. Furthermore,

without more information, and generally speaking, “[p]rocessing capacity is presently a zero-sum

game,” and granting a request “to expedite [a USCIS petition] would necessarily mean additional

delays for other applicants—many of whom undoubtedly face hardships of their own.” Murway v.

Blinken, No. 21-1618, 2022 WL 493082, at *4 (D.D.C. Feb. 16, 2022) (citing cases) (internal

quotations omitted); see also Tate v. Pompeo, 513 F. Supp. 3d 132, 150 (D.D.C. Jan. 16, 2021) (“While the effect of an individual case would be minimal, an accumulation of such individual

cases being pushed by judicial fiat to the front of the line would erode the ability of agencies to

determine their priorities.”). Simply put, because Plaintiff has not alleged enough facts showing

that any alleged delay or lack of action has been unreasonable, or that there exists some clear

impropriety on the part of Defendants, her allegations are insufficient to sustain a cause of action

under the APA.

Accordingly, and for all of these reasons, this case is dismissed without prejudice.

Plaintiff’s Motion to Expedite, ECF No. 3, is denied as moot. A separate Order accompanies this

Memorandum Opinion.

Date: April 17, 2026 ___________/s/____________ RUDOLPH CONTRERAS United States District Judge