H-1B visa dad stuck abroad told 18 months delay is reasonable

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by an H-1B visa holder who has been stranded in India for about 18 months after a U.S. consular interview, ruling that the delay in adjudicating his visa application was not legally unreasonable despite his separation from his U.S.-citizen wife and children.

In a July 10 opinion, U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly rejected claims brought by Navdeep Sharma, an Indian national who alleged the federal government had unlawfully delayed action on his H-1B visa application and sought a court order compelling officials to make a decision.

Although sympathetic, the judge said that he could see no reason for the court to “bump him to the front of the line”.

Sharma worked for Tata Consultancy Services and lived in Georgetown, Texas, with his wife and two children, who are U.S. citizens, per the filings. He traveled to India to obtain a new H-1B visa stamp after his employer secured approval to extend his H-1B status, but he became stuck abroad while the application remained pending.

The court’s decision could make it harder for other visa applicants to successfully challenge lengthy processing delays in court. The ruling also reinforces courts’ reluctance to order faster action on individual visa applications when doing so could move one applicant ahead of others waiting for decisions.

Newsweek contacted Tata Consultancy Services, the U.S. Department of State, and attorneys for Sharma for comment outside regular business hours.

Sharma’s employer filed a petition in December 2023 seeking to extend his H-1B status through March 2027, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved the petition in early 2024.

Sharma traveled to Hyderabad, India, in January 2025 for a visa interview. After the interview, U.S. officials declined to issue his visa and instructed him to undergo a medical examination. The opinion says he later completed a second medical examination after another request from the U.S. Consulate.

In July 2025, Sharma’s online case status changed to “Approved,” prompting him to return to the consulate to collect his passport. Instead, consular officials again declined to issue the visa and requested information about his social media accounts. The lawsuit says he has been waiting for a final decision ever since.

The Trump administration has imposed tougher social media screening for many visa applicants as part of expanded immigration vetting.

While waiting in India since the interview, Sharma alleged he was unable to return to his job in the United States and remained separated from his family, which was noted by the court.

Sharma had sued Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other top administration officials, claiming the government unlawfully delayed a decision on his H-1B visa application. But Kelly found Sharma had failed to show those senior officials were responsible for the delay, noting that DHS had already approved his H-1B petition and that claims about security checks holding up the case were speculative. The judge also ruled that visa decisions are made by consular officers, not senior officials in Washington.

The judge then considered whether the delay was unreasonable under the legal framework federal courts use in visa delay cases.

Judge Kelly acknowledged that several factors favored Sharma. The opinion says that Sharma alleged economic harm because he could not work for Tata Consultancy Services while in India and that he and the company had invested “substantial time and money” in the visa process.

The judge concluded that the most important factors favored the government.

The opinion noted there is no congressionally imposed deadline for adjudicating visa applications and cited prior decisions finding that delays approaching two years are often considered reasonable.

“That delay falls well short of pleading what courts have considered an unreasonable delay,” Kelly wrote.

The judge also found that ordering officials to act on Sharma’s application would effectively move him ahead of other applicants awaiting decisions.

“Ordering consular officials to process his application on his preferred timeline would necessarily require [the agency] to prioritize [his] application[] ‘at the expense of other similarly situated applicants,'” Kelly wrote.

Sharma had argued that his application was already receiving unusual treatment because officials requested information about his social media accounts before such screening was publicly announced for H-1B applicants. The court rejected that argument, finding it did not establish that expediting his case would avoid disrupting the government’s processing queue.

The opinion further noted that Sharma agreed there was “no indication that Defendants are acting in bad faith.”

Ultimately, the judge concluded that Sharma had failed to state a viable unreasonable delay claim.

“The Court takes notice of the troubling backlog of petitions waiting for…adjudication,” Kelly wrote. But he added that Sharma’s wait time “pales in comparison to the longer delays other applicants have unsuccessfully challenged in this district.”

While expressing sympathy for Sharma’s situation, Kelly said the hardships he described did not justify judicial intervention.

“Although the Court sympathizes with Sharma and his prolonged separation from his family, this factor alone is not a reason for the Court to bump him to the front of the line,” the judge wrote.

The court granted the government’s motion to dismiss, ending the case.

The State Department advises visa applicants to wait at least 180 days after their interview or after providing any requested additional information before making routine inquiries about their application, unless an emergency exists.

It comes as the Trump administration pursues a string of changes to the H-1B visa program. The administration sought to impose a $100,000 fee on many new H-1B petitions filed for workers outside the United States, although a federal judge blocked the measure in June. It has also moved to replace the traditional random H-1B lottery with a wage-based selection system that would give preference to higher-paid applicants.