Mandamus decisions / District of South Carolina

Patel v. Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services

District of South CarolinaMary Gordon BakerDecided October 20, 2025No. 2:25-cv-04224

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2,996 written decisions from 2,731 cases in the whole mandamus and agency-delay group, the group's newest decided November 12, 2026. Updated November 14, 2026 at 1:17 a.m. CT; the Passim connector counts the live collection, which can differ by the day's additions and retirements (which total to quote). Coverage: of the 1,617 public decisions since January 1, 2025 that a CourtListener and GovInfo search for mandamus and agency delay finds, Passim holds 1,406 (87%), 1,039 of them in this group, measured November 14, 2026. Some of what that search finds are not mandamus decisions. Tell us about a decision we're missing.

These are counts of past written decisions and dockets, not predictions of how any case will be decided. A distribution appears only when at least 5 decisions (or 5 dockets) are behind it; smaller groups are listed, not summarized. How it's counted.

What the decision decided

Each value cites the passage it was read from. Values read by a model were checked against that passage; values read by rule come from fixed text patterns. Read the decision before relying on either.

Agency	Not recorded Read by a model
Form or filing	I-765 (EAD); I-918 (U visa) Read by a model This action has been filed by the Plaintiff, a non-prisoner litigant pro se, challenging Defendant’s delay in adjudicating his pending U nonimmigrant visa and accompanying work authorization application pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act.
What the suit asked for	Decide the application Read by a model This action has been filed by the Plaintiff, a non-prisoner litigant pro se, challenging Defendant’s delay in adjudicating his pending U nonimmigrant visa and accompanying work authorization application pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act.
Kind of order	A magistrate judge's recommendation Read by a model REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
Motion decided	None Read by a model
Whose motion	The court on its own Read by a model Accordingly, it is recommended that this action be dismissed without prejudice for lack of prosecution, pursuant to Rule 4(m) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Disposition	Magistrate judge's recommendation A magistrate judge's report and recommendation. The district judge decides whether to adopt it, so it is not counted as either side's win. Read by a model REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
Prevailing party	Neither side Read by a model REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
The delay claim	Dismissed Read by a model Accordingly, it is recommended that this action be dismissed without prejudice for lack of prosecution, pursuant to Rule 4(m) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Months pending	Not stated Read by a model
TRAC factors	The court did not weigh the TRAC factors Read by a model
Threshold rulings	None Read by a model
U visa claims	Final decision: dismissed; Work permit: dismissed Read by a model Accordingly, it is recommended that this action be dismissed without prejudice for lack of prosecution, pursuant to Rule 4(m) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Other orders in this case

The group holds 2 decisions from this suit, oldest first. Outcome counts on these pages count the case once, by its latest decision. How decisions are grouped into cases.

Decision	Decided	Judge	Disposition
Patel v. Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration ServicesThis decision	October 20, 2025	Mary Gordon Baker	Magistrate judge's recommendation
Patel v. Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration ServicesThe case's latest decision: its outcome is the one counted	November 10, 2025	Richard Mark Gergel	Dismissed

How the case ended

Docket: No. 2:25-cv-04224
On the docket: This ruling (ECF 14)
Filed: May 19, 2025
Ended: November 12, 2025
Suit's filing to its end: 177 days
How it ended: Dismissed on jurisdiction or the merits
From the record: idb disp 6 (judgment: motion before trial), judgment for defendant

A voluntary or stipulated dismissal is how most suits end once the agency acts; the docket rarely says why. Other suits in this court.

The ruling's entry is the docket's one order or judgment entered the day of the decision. Both come from CourtListener's copy of the docket; check them there.

Supreme Court and Fourth Circuit authority

District decisions bind no one. On the questions this decision raises, the Supreme Court decisions and the circuit's published decisions listed here bind this court; a circuit disposition marked nonprecedential was not published as precedent and is persuasive only. ImmCite status as read November 14, 2026. Check the current status before relying on one.

Norton v. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, 542 U.S. 55

Supreme Court, June 14, 2004. Section 706(1) and mandamus reach only a discrete agency action that the agency is legally required to take, so a court cannot compel programmatic improvements or action the law leaves to agency discretion.

ImmCite: treatment available, history exists, not clearance
Gonzalez v. Cuccinelli, 985 F.3d 357

Fourth Circuit, January 14, 2021. Courts may review delay in placing U-visa petitioners on the waitlist under the TRAC factors and should not dismiss such claims at the pleading stage, but lack jurisdiction over delay in pre-waitlist work-permit requests, a point on which the Sixth Circuit disagrees.

ImmCite: caution, adverse or limiting treatment found. Rejected in the Sixth Circuit by Barrios Garcia v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 25 F.4th 430 (2022).
Lovo v. Miller, 107 F.4th 199

Fourth Circuit, July 3, 2024. The 'decision or action' language of § 1182(a)(9)(B)(v), which the court treated as coextensive with § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii), does not reach USCIS inaction, so a district court may hear a claim that USCIS unreasonably delayed a provisional unlawful-presence waiver.

ImmCite: treatment available, history exists, not clearance. ImmCite has read all 5 published decisions citing this case, as of 2026-11-07; none treats it adversely. That describes those decisions; it is not a determination that the case is good law.