Li v. Department of Homeland Security

• Court: District Court, W.D. Washington
• Decided: January 24, 2025
• Docket: 2:23-cv-01931
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 District Judge Marsha J. Pechman

7 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON 8 AT SEATTLE

9 XU LI and BRIGHT LIFE Case No. 2:23-cv-01931-MJP 10 INTERNATIONAL INC., STIPULATED MOTION TO HOLD 11 Plaintiffs, CASE IN ABEYANCE AND v. [PROPOSED] ORDER 12 ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS and UR Noted for Consideration: 13 MENDOZA JADDOU, January 23, 2025

14 Defendants.

15 16 Plaintiffs and Defendants, by and through their counsel of record, pursuant to Federal Rule 17 of Civil Procedure 6 and Local Rules 7(d)(1), 10(g) and 16, hereby jointly stipulate and move to 18 continue to stay these proceedings for 120 days. Plaintiffs bring this litigation pursuant to the 19 Administrative Procedure Act to challenge U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) 20 denial of the Form I-140 filed on Plaintiff Xu Li’s behalf as erroneous, arbitrary and capricious 21 and contrary to law. For good cause, the parties request that this case be stayed through May 23, 22 2025. 23 Courts have “broad discretion” to stay proceedings. Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681, 706 24 (1997). “[T]he power to stay proceedings is incidental to the power inherent in every court to 1 control the disposition of the causes on its docket with economy of time and effort for itself, for 2 counsel, and for litigants.” Landis v. N. Am. Co., 299 U.S. 248, 254 (1936); see also Fed. R. Civ. 3 P. 1.

4 With additional time, this litigation may be resolved in its entirety. Plaintiffs intend to 5 withdraw their pending Form I-140, Petition for Alien Worker, cure deficiencies and re-file a Form 6 I-140 using premium processing that allows USCIS to process the application within a 45-day 7 processing timeframe.1 USCIS will consider this new application and supporting evidence 8 separately from the Form I-140 at issue in this litigation. Once USCIS issues a decision, Plaintiffs 9 agree to voluntarily dismiss this litigation. 10 Additional time is required to allow these steps to be completed. Therefore, the parties 11 believe good cause exists to stay this proceeding for 120 days, to save the parties and the Court 12 from spending unnecessary time and judicial resources on this matter. Accordingly, the parties 13 jointly stipulate and request that the Court stay these proceedings through May 23, 2025. The

14 parties will submit a joint status report on or before May 23, 2025. 15 16 // 17 18 // 19 20 // 21 22

23 1 See USCIS.gov, How Do I Request Premium Processing? available at https://www.uscis.gov/forms/all-forms/how- 24 do-i-request-premium-processing (last accessed Jan. 23, 2025). 1 // 2 DATED this 24th day of January, 2025.

3 Respectfully submitted,

4 TESSA M. GORMAN United States Attorney 5 s/ Michelle R. Lambert 6 MICHELLE R. LAMBERT, NYS #4666657 Assistant United States Attorney 7 United States Attorney’s Office 1201 Pacific Avenue, Suite 700 8 Tacoma, WA 98402 Phone: (253) 428-3824 9 Fax: (253) 428-3826 Email: michelle.lambert@usdoj.gov 10 Attorneys for Defendants

11 I certify that this memorandum contains 326 words, in compliance with the Local Civil Rules. 12 s/ Dima N. Malhas 13 DR. DIMA N. MALHAS, WSBA#44370 Chung, Malhas & Mantel, PLLC 14 1037 NE 65th Street, Ste. 80171 Seattle, Washington 98115 15 Phone: 206-264-8999 Email: dmalhas@cmmlawfim.com 16 s/ Edward C. Chung 17 EDWARD C. CHUNG, WSBA#34292 Chung, Malhas & Mantel, PLLC 18 1037 NE 65th Street, Ste. 80171 Seattle, Washington 98115 19 Phone: 206-264-8999 Email: echung@cmmlawfirm.com 20 Attorneys for Plaintiffs

22 23 24 1 [PROPOSED] ORDER 2 The parties having stipulated and agreed, it is hereby so ORDERED. The parties shall file 3 a joint status report on or before May 23, 2025.

4 5 DATED this 24th day of January, 2025. 6 A 7 8 MARSHA J. PECHMAN 9 United States District Judge 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24