1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 7 A.G., et al., Case No. 24-cv-00252-JD

8 Plaintiffs,

ORDER RE DISMISSAL

v. 9

10 SECRETARY OF U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, et al., 11 Defendants.

12 13 In this immigration case, plaintiffs’ complaint, Dkt. No. 1, is dismissed pursuant to Federal 14 Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a), with leave to amend. Defendants’ motion to dismiss, Dkt. No. 27, is 15 terminated as moot. 16 A complaint is properly dismissed under Rule 8 when “one cannot determine from the 17 complaint who is being sued, for what relief, and on what theory, with enough detail to guide 18 discovery.” McHenry v. Renne, 84 F.3d 1172, 1178 (9th Cir. 1996). 19 That is the situation here. For plaintiff A.G., the complaint says that she was entitled to be 20 given the same immigration status as her parents on the same date. See, e.g., Dkt. No. 1 ¶¶ 47, 55; 21 Dkt. No. 30 at 2-3 (“Plaintiffs allege that Defendants . . . have a duty to approve a green card 22 application for a derivative applicant under § 1153(d) when the principal applicant gets a green 23 card”) (cleaned up). The complaint also says that A.G.’s application for adjustment of status was 24 not approved at the same time her parents’ applications were approved, and she was instead issued 25 a “request for evidence” (presumably on the same date that her parents’ applications were 26 approved), because “the civil surgeon had made a mistake on A.G.’s initial medical report,” which 27 she needed to have corrected. Dkt. No. 1 ¶¶ 30-31. The complaint acknowledges that an error- 1 In effect, plaintiffs concede that there was a good reason to explain why A.G. did not 2 || receive a green card approval at the same time as her parents, while at the same time asserting that 3 any failure to issue simultaneous approvals violates 8 U.S.C. § 1153(d). The end result is that it is 4 || impossible to determine from the current complaint “on what theory” plaintiff A.G. is claiming an 5 entitlement to relief as against the USCIS and State Department defendants. McHenry, 84 F.3d at 6 1178. 7 The failure to satisfy Rule 8(a)’s pleading requirement is even more pronounced for the 8 five other plaintiffs who remain in the case. See Dkt. No. 1 1-9 (naming eight plaintiffs in 9 || addition to plaintiff A.G.); Dkt. No. 39 (dismissing three plaintiffs pursuant to the parties’ 10 stipulation of mootness). For those five plaintiffs, the complaint alleges no facts whatsoever other 11 than to say that they too were “harm[ed] . . . as illustrated by Plaintiff A.G.” Dkt. No. 1 ¥ 23. 12 || How that could be so is a complete mystery, all the more so because the set of facts alleged for 5 13 plaintiff A.G. appear to be highly idiosyncratic. See id. 31. 14 Plaintiffs may file an amended complaint by April 9, 2025. A failure to meet this deadline 3 15 without express approval will result in a dismissal of the case under Federal Rule of Civil a 16 Procedure 41(b).

IT IS SO ORDERED.

|) Dated: March 19, 2025 19 20

JAME NATO

21 Unitedfftates District Judge 22 23 24 25 26 27 28