OPT Case Headed Back to District Court

By John Miano on May 16, 2016

The latest in the 8-year-old legal saga of Optional Practical Training (OPT) is that the D.C. Circuit Court has dismissed the case. This is not as ominous as it might sound. The effect is that the case goes back to the lower court, the D.C. District.

The D.C. Circuit held that, because DHS did new rulemaking between the time the case was appealed and the court heard the case, that the issues on the old rulemaking were moot.

So now we have to deal with the new rulemaking in the district court.

On other words, we have entered a "Rinse, Lather, Repeat" loop. If new rulemaking on a subject makes the old rulemaking doing the same thing moot and DHS can put in place a new rule between the time a decision is made on the previous rule and the appeal is heard, the litigation can go on forever, as in Jarndyce v. Jarndyce.

The battle continues.