NWIRP is dedicated to systemic change of immigration laws, and consequently dedicates significant resources to impact litigation. During the last decade we have positively affected many important cases with implications for national immigration laws.
To respond to the growth of immigration appeals at the Federal and Ninth District Courts, we increased our focus in this area by establishing a new legal unit in 2005. At any one time, the Impact Litigation Unit has several cases pending before the federal courts. NWIRP was invited by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to speak at a roundtable discussion on how to deal with the Circuit's large volume of immigration cases.
One example of NWIRP's work in impact litigation is its ongoing litigation in Duran-Gonzalez v. Dept. of Homeland Security, a lawsuit challenging the Department of Homeland Security's willful refusal to follow the Ninth Circuit's binding decision in Perez-Gonzalez v. Ashcroft, 379 F.3d 783 (9th Cir. 2004) (a case previously litigated by NWIRP).
Along with the American Immigration Legal Foundation and Van Der Hout, Brigagliano & Nightingale, NWIRP filed a class action seeking declaratory relief and preliminary and permanent injunctive relief. Judge Pechman, from the District Court of Western Washington, granted the motion for circuit-wide class certification, and granted the motions for preliminary injunctive relief. That order can be seen here. The government filed an appeal of the preliminary injunction, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order reversing the preliminary injunction inthe availability Gonzales v. Department of Homeland Sec., 508 F.3d 1227 (9th Cir. 2007). A petition for rehearing en banc was submitted on February 26, 2008, and is currently pending.
Developments from the case will be posted here.
In another case NWIRP, along with the ACLU of Washington State and the law firm of Stoel Rives have filed a class action in the Western District of Washington State challenging extended delays by USCIS in completing the adjudication of hundreds of applicants who have applied for naturalization (citizenship). The case is Rashanak Roshandel, et al. v. Micheal Chertoff, et al., C07-1739-MJP (2007). Plaintiffs are currently waiting arguments on their motion for class certification and the government’s motion to dismiss.
Click here for a list of the published decisions in which NWIRP has prevailed.
