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Law360 (May 19, 2020, 5:37 PM EDT ) A D.C. federal judge has refused to block President Donald Trump's recent proclamation barring foreigners from securing new green cards abroad, finding that the U.S. citizens and green card applicants challenging the order haven't yet been hurt by it.
In a Monday order, U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta said that the Americans and green card holders seeking to sponsor foreign relatives, as well as foreigners who won green cards in the diversity lottery, don't have grounds to challenge the ban, which suspends certain family-based and diversity green cards in response to high U.S. unemployment.
The challengers didn't offer evidence that their immigration cases had been halted as a result of the president's green card proclamation, meaning that their claims to have standing to sue "fail right off the bat," the judge said.
Additionally, they failed to show that an order blocking the green card ban would even help their cases, Judge Mehta said, noting that some of the delays in the challengers' green card cases were unrelated to the proclamation. U.S. consulates abroad have largely shuttered operations during the coronavirus pandemic and are not holding green card interviews anyway, he said.
"At this juncture, the court can only speculate whether the challenged actions have caused, or imminently will cause, the family-based visa plaintiffs to experience any delay in reuniting with their families, or the diversity visa plaintiffs to lose the opportunity to receive visas," Judge Mehta wrote.
The individuals had lodged their challenge to the proclamation in a proposed class action in April, updating a lawsuit that initially challenged a family's green card processing delays. The suit claimed that the proclamation, issued days before, is a "gross usurpation of Congress's power to regulate immigration."
Monday's ruling is at least the second time a federal judge has swatted away a legal challenge to Trump's proclamation, which primarily targets the relatives of U.S. permanent residents, American citizens' parents and diversity visa winners, while exempting foreign investors, U.S. citizens' spouses and minor children as well as health care workers.
Last month, an Oregon federal judge refused to halt the ban in another challenge levied by the American Immigration Lawyers Association, finding that the ban was unrelated to the suit's initial challenge to a separate proclamation that barred foreigners abroad from getting green cards if they couldn't prove they could afford health insurance.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment. An attorney for the proposed class didn't respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
The proposed class is represented by James O. Hacking III of Hacking Law Practice LLC.
The federal government is represented by Aaron S. Goldsmith of the DOJ's Civil Division.
The case is Nguyen et al. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security et al., case number 1:20-cv-00718, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
--Editing by Jack Karp.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
