In Almakalani v. McAleenan, (ED NY, March 16, 2021), a New York federal district court rejected a number of challenges to alleged unreasonable delays by the federal government in adjudicating whether 86 family members of petitioners could lawfully immigrate from Yemen as family members of U.S. citizens. Special procedures were promulgated in 2012 for Yemeni family members because of the unreliability of documentation from Yemen. Plaintiffs alleged that the special procedures "are the result of a conspiracy between the Defendants—all members of former President Donald J. Trump’s administration, including former President Trump himself—to halt Yemeni Muslim immigration to the United States." The court said in part:
Plaintiffs’ only specific factual allegations of animus or intentional discrimination evoke Islamophobic rhetoric in statements and actions attributable to former President Trump and his administration.... Those statements and actions do not specifically relate to the Yemen Guidance or the adjudication of Form I-130 petitions. Moreover, USCIS issued and implemented the Yemen Guidance in 2012, during the administration of former President Barack Obama and prior to any of the statements and actions that allegedly support Plaintiffs’ claims of discriminatory animus....
Plaintiffs claim that Defendants have violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by subjecting Form I-130 petitions brought by and on behalf of Muslim individuals to higher burdens of proof than those petitions brought by or on behalf of non-Muslims....
To the extent that Form I-130 petitions on behalf of Yemeni beneficiaries are adjudicated differently than petitions on behalf of beneficiaries from other countries, Defendants have articulated a logical justification grounded in the unreliability of Yemen’s official processes for maintaining and issuing civil records. That justification is unrelated to matters of religious faith or affiliation, and it provides a rational explanation for the challenged policies and practices. Accordingly, Plaintiffs fail to state a claim under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
