A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a married couple seeking to force the government to finish processing a long-delayed immigrant visa. The ruling, issued on March 23, 2026, marks another hurdle for families caught in the legal limbo of U.S. consular “administrative processing.”
Fatima Ramazanova, a citizen of Turkmenistan, and her American husband, Frank Emerson Wright Jr., filed the suit against Secretary of State Marco Rubio and several other high-ranking officials. The couple, who currently live in the United Arab Emirates, argued that the government’s failure to make a final decision on Ramazanova’s visa was causing them financial stress and emotional harm.
The legal journey began in July 2021 when Wright filed the initial petition for his wife. While the petition was approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in early 2022, the process stalled after Ramazanova’s interview at a U.S. consulate in November 2023.
At that time, a consular officer “refused” the visa under Section 221(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, a move that typically moves an application into a background check phase known as administrative processing.
In her decision, U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich ruled that the court did not have the authority to compel the State Department to act.
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The judge relied heavily on a recent appellate court trend suggesting that once a consular officer issues a refusal—even a temporary one for the sake of more processing—the government has technically met its legal obligation to “decide” the case.
“The defendants fulfilled this duty when the consular officer refused Ramazanova’s visa application,” Judge Friedrich wrote in the opinion. She noted that federal law does not clearly require an officer to “re-adjudicate” an application that has already been refused, even if the applicant is later asked to provide more information.
The court also dismissed claims against officials outside of the State Department, including the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, noting that those departments do not have the power to issue the visa in question.
While some judges in the same district have recently disagreed on this specific legal point, this ruling follows a growing body of case law that makes it harder for frustrated applicants to use the court system to bypass embassy backlogs. For Ramazanova and Wright, the decision means the visa remains in the hands of the State Department without a court-ordered deadline for a final answer.
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