Sharma v. United States Department of Homeland Security

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: December 18, 2025
• Docket: 24-7205
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS DEC 18 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

MANVENDRA SHARMA, No. 24-7205 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellant, 5:24-cv-03402-NC v. MEMORANDUM* UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY,

Defendant - Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California Nathanael M. Cousins, Magistrate Judge, Presiding

Submitted December 10, 2025** San Francisco, California

Before: BUMATAY, JOHNSTONE, and DE ALBA, Circuit Judges.

Plaintiff Manvendra Sharma appeals the district court’s dismissal for lack of

Article III jurisdiction. Among other things, Sharma seeks reversal of the

government’s revocation of his exemption from the statutory cap on H-1B visas that

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). are issued annually. Sharma only appeals the dismissal of Count 2 of his Complaint.

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we REVERSE and REMAND.

We review dismissals for lack of jurisdiction de novo. See Thomas v. Cnty.

of Humboldt, Cal., 124 F.4th 1179, 1186 (9th Cir. 2024). Material allegations in the

Complaint are accepted as true and construed in favor of the plaintiff. Id. To

evaluate Article III jurisdiction, we assume a plaintiff’s merits claims are valid.

Dep’t of Educ. v. Brown, 600 U.S. 551, 564 (2023) (citing Fed. Election Comm’n v.

Cruz, 596 U.S. 289, 298 (2022)).

For federal courts to have jurisdiction over a suit, a plaintiff must have (1) an

injury-in-fact that is (2) fairly traceable to the defendant’s challenged actions and (3)

likely redressable by a favorable judicial decision. Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504

U.S. 555, 560 (1992). Sharma alleges (and the government does not contest) that he

suffered an injury-in-fact because United States Citizenship and Immigration

Services (“USCIS”) revoked his immigration-benefit-related “cap number.” The

parties only dispute traceability and redressability. At this stage, Sharma has

satisfied both elements.

Sharma’s injury is sufficiently traceable to USCIS. For an injury to be

traceable to a defendant’s conduct, “there must be a causal connection between the

injury and the conduct complained of.” Id. USCIS’s revocation of Sharma’s cap

number satisfies this requirement because Sharma contends that the agency’s

2 24-7205 misinterpretation of 8 U.S.C. § 1184(g)(3) is the reason it improperly revoked his

cap number. The government maintains that USCIS only revoked Sharma’s cap

number after his former employer asked that its initial H-1B petition be rescinded.

This does not defeat traceability. Assuming Sharma’s contentions to be true, USCIS

was not statutorily required, or authorized, to revoke his cap number. Per Sharma’s

argument, USCIS acted independently of Sharma’s first employer when it revoked

the cap number under its allegedly erroneous interpretation of § 1184(g)(3). See

Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 167 (1997) (“[An] injury must be fairly traceable to

the challenged action of the defendant, and not the result of the independent action

of some third party not before the court” (emphasis added)).

Sharma’s alleged injury is also redressable. Sharma seeks the restoration of

his cap number. The Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A),

authorizes a reviewing court to set aside unlawful agency action. See Renee v.

Duncan, 686 F.3d 1002, 1013 (9th Cir. 2012) (“If an agency has misinterpreted the

law, there is Article III standing ‘even though the agency . . . might later, in the

exercise of its lawful discretion, reach the same result for a different reason.’”)

(quoting Fed. Election Comm’n v. Akins, 524 U.S. 11, 25 (1998)). In arguing that

the agency “cannot reopen and reinstate a[n H-1B] petition that was withdrawn by

the petitioning employer,” the government does not explain how Sharma’s first

employer’s withdrawal of his H-1B petition prevents USCIS from reinstating

3 24-7205 Sharma’s cap number or allocating him a different one. The case the government

cites, Zixiang Li v. Kerry, 710 F.3d 995 (9th Cir. 2013), is distinguishable, as it

involved plaintiffs trying to restore unique, alien-specific visa numbers that had

already been assigned to other identifiable third parties. Id. at 1001–03. Here, the

government cites no statutory or regulatory barriers to restoring or re-assigning

Sharma’s cap number. Finally, the government argues that Sharma’s injuries are not

redressable because he can go through the lottery process again, without the “unfair

advantage” of odds fraudulently boosted by his first employer. But in doing so, the

government fails to recognize that requiring Sharma to go through the lottery again

is exactly the injury-in-fact at the heart of Sharma’s suit.

REVERSED and REMANDED as to Count 2.

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