UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
HAITIAN BRIDGE ALLIANCE, et
al.,
Plaintiffs,
Civ. Action No. 21-3317 (EGS)
v.
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF
THE UNITED STATES, et al.,
Defendants.
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Plaintiffs—the California-based nonprofit Haitian Bridge
Alliance and eleven Haitian asylum seekers expelled from the
United States—bring this lawsuit against various federal
government officials and departments 1 (“Defendants” or “the
1 Defendants include Joseph Biden, President of the United
States, in his official capacity; Alejandro J. Mayorkas,
Secretary of Homeland Security, in his official capacity; the
Department of Homeland Security; Chris Magnus, Commissioner for
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in his official capacity;
William A. Ferrara, Executive Assistant Commissioner of U.S.
Customs and Border Protection Office of Field Operations, in his
official capacity; Raul Ortiz, Chief of U.S. Border Patrol, in
his official capacity; U.S. Customs and Border Protection; Tae
D. Johnson, Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, in his official capacity; U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement; Xavier Becerra, Secretary of Health and
Human Services, in his official capacity; Department of Health
and Human Services; Rochelle P. Walensky, Director of Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, in her official capacity;
and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. See Compl., ECF
No. 1.
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government”) alleging violations of the Due Process Clause of
the Fifth Amendment; the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”);
the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”); the Foreign Affairs
Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 (“FARRA”); and the Public
Health Service Act of 1944. See Compl., ECF No. 1. 2 Plaintiffs
seek to bring their claims on behalf of a class of similarly
situated persons defined as “all Haitian, or presumed Haitian,
individuals who (1) sought access to the U.S. asylum process in
or around the CBP Encampment near the Del Rio Port of Entry
between September 9 and 24, 2021, and (2) were denied access to
the U.S. asylum process.” Id. ¶ 271.
Upon filing, Plaintiffs designated this lawsuit as related
to Huisha-Huisha v. Gaynor, No. 21-cv-100 (D.D.C. 2021), and
P.J.E.S. v. Wolf, No. 20-cv-2245 (D.D.C. 2020), requesting that
the case be assigned to this Court under Local Civil Rule
40.5(a). See Notice Related Case, ECF No. 7. Defendants object
to the designation of this case as related to the two other
cases, and request that this Court transfer this action to the
Calendar and Case Management Committee for reassignment. Joint
Status Report (“JSR”), ECF No. 20 at 11-12.
2 When citing to electronic filings throughout this Memorandum
Opinion the Court cites to the ECF header page number not the
page number of the filed document.
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Upon careful consideration of the parties’ arguments, the
applicable law, and the entire record, the Court SUSTAINS
Defendants’ objection.
Generally, all new cases are randomly assigned. See LCvR
40.3(a). Random assignment “ensure[s] greater public confidence
in the integrity of the judicial process[,] . . . guarantees
fair and equal distribution of cases to all judges, avoids
public perception or appearance of favoritism in assignments,
and reduces opportunities for judge-shopping.” Tripp v. Exec.
Off. of President, 196 F.R.D. 201, 202 (D.D.C. 2000). However,
the local rules provide for an exception for “related cases” in
the interest of judicial economy. See LCvR 40.5. Civil cases are
considered “related” when “the earliest is still pending on the
merits in the District Court,” and they: (1) “relate to common
property,” (2) “involve common issues of fact,” (3) “grow out of
the same event or transaction,” or (4) “involve the validity or
infringement of the same patent.” LCvR 40.5(a)(3).
“The party requesting the related-case designation bears
the burden of showing that the cases are related under Local
Civil Rule 40.5.” Singh v. McConville, 187 F. Supp. 3d 152, 155
(D.D.C. 2016). This burden is “heavy,” as “[d]eviating from
th[e] foundational principle” of random assignment “is
appropriate only if the relationship between the . . . cases is
certain.” Dakota Rural Action v. Dep’t of Agric., No. 18-cv-2852
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(BAH), 2019 WL 1440134, at *1 (D.D.C. Apr. 1, 2019). If a party
objects to the designation that cases are related, “the matter
shall be determined by the judge to whom the case is assigned.”
See LCvR 40.5(c)(3).
Here, Plaintiffs argue that this case is related to Huisha-
Huisha and P.J.E.S. because all three cases are class actions
that arise out of the “same event or transaction” and involve
multiple “common issues of fact.” JSR, ECF No. 20 at 2 (quoting
LCvR 40.5(a)(3)). According to Plaintiffs, (1) “[e]ach of these
three cases challenges on a classwide basis the same Title 42
Process: the unprecedented use of public health powers to
justify the immediate expulsion of asylum seekers without any of
the procedural protections guaranteed by Congress”; (2) “[e]ach
case concerns whether class members were afforded the safeguards
expressly provided by the [INA] before class members were
expelled under the Title 42 Process”; (3) “[e]ach seeks the same
relief of enjoining the continued application of the Title 42
Process against class members”; and (4) “each case will require
this Court to assess the same administrative record underlying
the Title 42 Process.” JSR, ECF No. 20 at 1-2. Defendants
concede that all three cases challenge, to some degree, the
lawfulness of the Title 42 Process, but argue that this fact is
not enough to make the cases related. Id. at 17. Defendants
further argue that this case is factually distinct from Huisha-
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Huisha and P.J.E.S. Id. Whereas Huisha-Huisha concerned a class
of families subject to expulsion pursuant to Title 42, and
P.J.E.S. involved a putative class of minors who were subject to
expulsion pursuant to Title 42, here, in contrast, the “putative
class definition does not reference Title 42 explicitly and is
focused instead on a certain population (Haitian migrants)
crossing at a certain location (Del Rio) near a certain CBP
‘encampment’ and at a certain time (between September 9 and 24,
2021) that were allegedly denied access to the asylum process
and expelled.” Id. at 16.
The Court agrees with Defendants. First, with regard to
whether this case arises out of the “same event or transaction,”
the fact that Plaintiffs’ Complaint includes a challenge to the
Title 42 Process is not sufficient in this instance to override
the general rule of random case assignment. Generally, there
must be a “substantial overlap” among cases for them to be
properly deemed related. See, e.g., Autumn Journey Hospice, Inc.
v. Sebelius, 753 F. Supp. 2d 135, 140 (D.D.C. 2010) (finding
related where “[e]ach case . . . presents identical issues for
resolution” (emphasis added)); see also Comm. on the Judiciary
v. McGahn, 391 F. Supp. 3d 116, 121-22 (D.D.C. 2019) (“The
principle behind the related case rule is that in certain
instances, the strong presumption of random case assignment is
outweighed by the interests of judicial efficiency in narrow
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circumstances, such as when virtually identical and highly
overlapping issues of fact are likely to be resolved in two
cases.” (emphasis added)). Here, although each of the three
cases at issue involve claims challenging the lawfulness of the
Title 42 Process, they do so to different degrees. For example,
both Huisha-Huisha and P.J.E.S. involve substantively identical
claims that are targeted at the Title 42 Process, with the
exception that P.J.E.S. includes one additional claim under the
Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. See P.J.E.S.
Compl., ECF No. 1; Huisha-Huisha Second Am. Compl., ECF No. 131.
In this action, on the other hand, only two of eight claims
facially challenge the Title 42 Process; the majority of
Plaintiffs’ Complaint instead concerns the so-called “Haitian
Deterrence Policy,” which Plaintiffs allege the government
separately developed to apply the Title 42 Process solely to
Haitians. E.g., Compl., ECF No. 1 ¶ 8. Indeed, Plaintiffs’
Complaint alleges that the government “departed from [the Title
42 Process] specifically for Haitian families in Del Rio.” Id. ¶
173; see Keepseagle v. Glickman, 194 F.R.D. 1, 3 (D.D.C. 2000)
(finding, in dicta, that two cases did not arise out of common
events or transactions, though plaintiffs had claimed they were
“injured by the same policies of defendant and in the same
manner” as plaintiffs in the other case); Dale v. Exec. Off. of
President, 121 F. Supp. 2d 35, 37 (D.D.C. 2000) (finding cases
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were not related though “all of the[] cases involved the denial
of a Privacy Act request”). Moreover, although Plaintiffs argue
that the Court will be required to “assess the same
administrative record underlying the Title 42 Process” as in
Huisha-Huisha and P.J.E.S., only one of Plaintiffs’ eight claims
challenges the Title 42 process as arbitrary and capricious
agency action. See generally Compl., ECF No. 1.
The cases Plaintiffs cite in their favor are
distinguishable for the same reasons. For example, in Autumn
Journey Hospice, Inc., because the two cases at issue presented
“identical issues for resolution,” the district court found that
“there [was] substantial overlap in both the factual
underpinning and the legal matters in dispute in each of the[] .
. . cases.” 753 F. Supp. 2d at 140 (emphasis added). And in
Singh, the plaintiffs in both cases at issue challenged the same
governmental regulations “on the same grounds.” 187 F. Supp. 3d
152. As explained above, here, “Title 42 is but one policy being
challenged in a case that is focused on the treatment of Haitian
migrants specifically.” JSR, ECF No. 20 at 17. Therefore, though
all three cases involve the Title 42 Process to some extent, the
Court does not find that they all grow out of the same event or
transaction “on the whole.” See G.Y.J.P. v. Wolf, No. 20-cv-1511
(TNM), 2020 WL 4192490, at *2 (D.D.C. July 21, 2020) (“Though
the goal of each Plaintiff is the same—to challenge Defendants’
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Title 42 Process—sharing the same litigation purpose is not
enough to make the cases related.”); Lucas v. Barreto, No. 04-
1262 (EGS), 2005 WL 607923, at *3 (D.D.C. Mar. 16, 2005)
(concluding that two cases did not “on the whole, ‘grow out of
the same event or transaction,’” even though an agency’s
“Performance Review Process” served as a “hook” between them).
Second, the Court is not persuaded that the three cases at
issue involve sufficient “common issues of fact.” LCvR
40.5(a)(3)(ii). Plaintiffs argue that the three cases “raise
common factual questions because all three cases fundamentally
revolve around the same central allegations: the process by
which Defendants adopted and implemented the Title 42 Process,
and the denial of plaintiffs’ rights under the INA when
subjected to the Title 42 Process.” JSR, ECF No. 20 at 7. But as
stated above, the Court does not agree that the “central
allegations” in this case revolve around the Title 42 Process;
rather, the core of this case challenges the Haitian Deterrence
Policy and how it was applied to Haitian asylum seekers at the
Del Rio Encampment.
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For the foregoing reasons, the Court SUSTAINS the
government’s objection. This case shall be transferred to the
Calendar and Case Management Committee for random reassignment.
LCvR 40.5(c)(1).
SO ORDERED.
Signed: Emmet G. Sullivan
United States District Judge
June 14, 2022
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