Visa Administrative Processing: F-1 Delay Suit Dismissed

A federal judge in Washington has ruled that 28 months of visa administrative processing for a student admitted to Dartmouth is not an unreasonable delay, showing how hard these cases are to win even after they survive dismissal.

A federal judge has thrown out an F-1 student’s lawsuit over visa administrative processing that has lasted since June 2024, ruling that a 28-month wait is not long enough to be unlawful. U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta of the District of Columbia granted the State Department judgment on the pleadings in Sluev v. Rubio on Oct. 22, eight months after he refused to dismiss the same case. For students, researchers and workers held after a Section 221(g) refusal at a U.S. consulate, the ruling draws a clear line: getting into court is one thing, and getting a judge to order a decision is another.

Timofey Sluev interviewed at the U.S. Embassy in Astana, Kazakhstan, on June 24, 2024, for a master’s program at Dartmouth College. According to the court’s February opinion, the consular officer asked for his curriculum vitae and a list of his publications, which he sent two days later. The October opinion says the case has been in administrative processing since June 26, 2024. He told the court he has postponed his start date several times and described financial strain, anxiety and depression.

How the student won the first round and lost the second

The government lost the first round. In February, Judge Mehta rejected its argument that the D.C. Circuit’s 2024 decision in Karimova v. Abate bars suits by applicants refused under Section 221(g). Karimova, he wrote, held only that Section 555(b) of the Administrative Procedure Act creates no duty to re-decide a refused application, and Sluev relied on other law too, including a State Department regulation, 22 C.F.R. 41.121(c), saying review of a refusal “may be deferred for not more than 120 days.” He also held that consular nonreviewability does not shield a case that is still undecided.

The government’s second motion argued only that the wait was reasonable, and that is where Sluev lost. Courts in Washington test delay claims under the six factors of the 1984 TRAC decision. Judge Mehta noted that delays of three to five years “are often not unreasonable” and held that 28 months “is within the range of reasonableness.” He credited a declaration from a Bureau of Consular Affairs official describing a plan for handling Security Advisory Opinion requests, the interagency checks behind many administrative processing holds, and said a process need not be strictly first-in, first-out to follow a rule of reason.

The factor that weighed most heavily was the effect on other applicants. An order would move Sluev “ahead of longer-pending petitions,” the judge wrote, a “judicial reordering” of agency priorities wherever he sits in line. The hardship factors tipped “modestly” toward Sluev, and the judge wrote that the court “sympathizes with the hardship.” It was not enough. The mandamus claim fell as well, because the APA already supplies a remedy. Lawsuits over stalled visa cases usually make two parallel claims. One is under the Administrative Procedure Act, which lets a court compel agency action that has been “unreasonably delayed.” The other is under the Mandamus Act, an older law that lets a court order an official to perform a clear duty. Sluev lost his main APA claim because the judge found 28 months wasn’t unreasonable, and “the mandamus claim fell as well” means his backup claim failed too. Mandamus is an extraordinary remedy available only when there is no other adequate remedy, and the APA already provides one, so courts treat the mandamus count as unnecessary. In any case, D.C. courts apply the same TRAC factors to both claims, so it would have failed for the same reason. The practical point is that adding a mandamus claim rarely changes the outcome: the case turns on whether the judge thinks the delay is unreasonable.

A 180-day benchmark that binds no one

Applicants often cite 8 U.S.C. 1571(b), where Congress said immigration benefit applications should be completed within 180 days. Following the D.C. Circuit’s 2023 ruling in Da Costa v. Immigration Investor Program Office, Judge Mehta treated that as an aspirational statement, not a deadline.

Da Costa v. Immigration Investor Program Office, 80 F.4th 330 (D.C. Cir. 2023), involved groups of foreign investors in the EB-5 program, which grants green cards to people who invest in U.S. businesses. They sued because USCIS had left their I-526 investor petitions pending for years, in many cases around two to four or more. They argued the delays were unreasonable under the APA and asked the court to order decisions. The district court dismissed the claims, and the D.C. Circuit affirmed in August 2023.

The court applied the six TRAC factors and found the delays were not unreasonable as a matter of law. Its main reasons were:

A rule of reason. USCIS’s practice of prioritizing petitions from investors whose home countries had visas immediately available was a sensible way to manage the backlog, even though it isn’t first-in, first-out.
No binding deadline. The 180-day language in 8 U.S.C. 1571(b) is a “sense of Congress” statement expressing an aspiration, not a statutory timetable. It therefore doesn’t make longer waits unlawful.
Line-jumping. Ordering decisions for these plaintiffs would push them ahead of other applicants who were waiting too, without speeding up processing overall. The court weighed this factor heavily against relief.
Hardship not enough. The court acknowledged the investors’ financial and personal harm but found it didn’t outweigh the other factors.

The case matters because it is binding D.C. Circuit precedent. District judges like Judge Mehta in Sluev rely on it to treat the 180-day benchmark as non-binding and to reject delay claims that would let one applicant move ahead of others.

Based on the dates in the opinion, Sluev’s case had been in administrative processing for 848 days when the judge ruled, almost five times that benchmark. The October opinion does not discuss the 120-day regulation that helped him survive dismissal.

The wider student visa picture is tightening too. The Migration Policy Institute, a Washington research organization, found in State Department monthly data that student and exchange visitor visa issuances fell 29 percent from October 2025 through February 2026 compared with a year earlier. That figure does not measure administrative processing, but it shows students waiting in a system that is issuing fewer visas overall.

What it means for students facing a 221(g) refusal

Read together, Judge Mehta’s two opinions mean an applicant in administrative processing can usually get past a motion to dismiss in Washington, but the merits turn on the clock. A student 10 or 15 months into the wait is likely to lose for the same reasons Sluev did, and the range the court cited suggests that even three to five years may not be enough. For students with a fixed start date, a suit that takes more than a year to decide can outlast the term it was meant to save.

The open question is 22 C.F.R. 41.121(c). If a court treats its 120-day limit as binding, applicants would have the deadline that 8 U.S.C. 1571(b) does not give them. The judge entered a final, appealable order, so the D.C. Circuit could take that up if Sluev appeals. Earlier coverage explains how mandamus suits over visa delays work and an earlier court challenge to administrative processing. Similar delay fights are playing out in a stalled citizenship case in Ohio and in the State Department’s rereview of refusals under the 75-country ban.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds a LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Deigo and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

Author's website Author's posts