Gabriel Ruiz-Diaz v. United States

ORDER

The Opinion filed October 5, 2012, is amended as follows: on slip Opinion page 12168, line 10, delete the following text: special immigrant; on slip Opinion page 12168, line 11, delete the following text: Justice Department; and on slip Opinion page 12168, lines 13-14, amend the following text: 18 U.S.C. § 1255 (a) to 8 U.S.C. § 1255 (a).

OPINION

Plaintiffs represent a class of non-citizen religious workers, together with the organizations that employ them, who have been admitted to this country on five-year religious worker visas. They challenge a regulation governing the process by which religious workers can apply for adjustment of status pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1255 (a). Under the regulation, 8 C.F.R. § 245.2 (a)(2)(i)(B), such employees are among the categories of applicants for lawful permanent resident (“LPR”) status who cannot file their visa applications concurrently with the petitions of their sponsoring employers. The employees must wait for the Citizenship and Immigration Service (“USCIS”) to approve their employers’ petitions before they can file applications. The plaintiffs would like to be able to file the employees’ applications concurrently with the…