MCIR v. USCIS

By Julie Axelrod on March 22, 2021

Summary

On November 24, 2020, the Center for Immigration Studies filed a case on behalf of the Massachusetts Coalition for Immigration Reform (MCIR) and Kevin Lynn against U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services (USCIS) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This claim challenged DHS and its component agency USCIS for promulgating National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) procedures in 2014 that failed to consider any aspect of USCIS’ entire mission; that is, the regulation of the conditions by which foreign nationals enter and remain in the United States.

Since it was signed into law in 1970 by President Richard Nixon, NEPA has required every agency considering an action that will affect the environment to analyze and publicize those effects before actually implementing the action. NEPA’s purpose is “to help public officials make decisions that are based on understanding of environmental consequences, and take actions that protect, restore, and enhance the environment.” NEPA is also intended to give ordinary members of the public the opportunity to voice their opinions on government actions that will affect their local communities. No exception applies to immigration-related actions, yet DHS and USCIS carry on as if immigration and naturalization programs are exempt from this law. NEPA also established the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) within the Executive Office of the President to ensure that all federal agencies meet their obligations under NEPA.

In 1978, the CEQ first mandated that every agency establish NEPA procedures providing a framework for following the statutory requirements of environmental analysis under NEPA. At that time, the functions of the current USCIS were housed in the Department of Justice, specifically within the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). When the Department of Justice’s NEPA procedures were first promulgated, they ignored the entire environmental impact of the INS’ regulation of the entrance and settlement of foreign nationals into the United States. When the Homeland Security Act of 2002 placed most of the functions of the INS into DHS, the new department eventually promulgated new NEPA procedures. During the creation of the new NEPA procedures, DHS failed to consider whether any of USCIS’ programs had the potential to impact the environment in the United States.

Yet the environmental impacts USCIS’s programs and policies are undeniable. Between 1990 and 2010, the U.S. population grew by over 61 million people due to expansive legal immigration and amnesty policies. The U.S. total population is expected to grow to almost 417 million by 2060 — 108 million more than in 2010. Immigration will account for about 80 percent of this population growth. Population growth exacerbates every single area of concern addressed by the environmental movement, such as damage to air quality, increased urban sprawl, water pollution, exacerbated traffic congestion, loss of green space, wildlife habitat, forests and farmland, increased carbon emissions, and the depletion of non-renewable resources.

DHS and USCIS’ complete failure to consider even the possibility that its programs could cause any of these effects is unlawful under NEPA. CIS therefore challenged this failure as arbitrary and capricious. At the time of filing, DHS had last substantially revised its NEPA procedures in 2014. In July 2020, CEQ updated its regulations, and required every agency to promulgate new NEPA procedures. The regulations went into effect in September 2020, and gave federal agencies one year to update their procedures.

Pleadings

  1. Complaint 
    1. Plaintiff Declarations
  2. Administrative Record 
  3. Amended Complaint
  4. Defendants' Motion to Dismiss Amended Complaint
  5. Defendant's Reply to Plaintiff's Opposition to Motion to Dismiss
    1. Declaration of Steven Chance Smith
    2. Declaration of Gail Getzwiller
    3. Declaration of Kevin Lynn
    4. Declaration of Linda Huhn
    5. Declaration of Bruce Anderson
    6. Declaration of Rob Meyer
    7. Declaration of Henry Barbaro
    8. Declaration of Steve Kropper
    9. Declaration of Todd Bensman
  6. Defendant's Reply
  7. Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment
  8. Defendants' Cross Motion for Summary Judgment And Opposition To Plaintiffs' Motion for Summary Judgment
  9. Plaintiffs' Opposition to Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment And Reply In Support of Plaintiffs' Motion for Summary Judgment
  10. Defendants' Reply to Plaintiff's Opposition to Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment

District Court Orders

Order Denying Defendant's Motion to Dismiss in Part and Granting It in Part

Expert Reports

Jessica Vaughan 

Steven Camarota 

Philip Cafaro 

Claims

The complaint brought two claims against USCIS and DHS. Count I challenged DHS’s 2014 NEPA procedures for failing to consider the impacts of USCIS’ immigration and naturalization policies and procedures. DHS allows for the promulgation of separate NEPA procedures for its component agencies such as USCIS, but, arbitrarily and capriciously did not consider whether USCIS’ entire mandate has the potential to impact the environment. Given the requirement from the CEQ at the time of filing that DHS update its NEPA regulations, Count I requested that the expected update include a consideration of its immigration programs. Count II alleged that the promulgation of 80 specific ongoing actions, all of which had the potential to increase the population of the United States, without any NEPA analysis, was arbitrary and capricious and amounted to a violation of NEPA.

Plaintiffs

MCIR

Plaintiff Massachusetts Coalition for Immigration Reform (MCIR) is a nonpartisan, membership-based public interest group. The members of MCIR are citizens united by their belief that record levels of mass immigration into the United States in recent years, both legal and illegal, have distinctly negative effects on our environment and quality of life, as well as on taxpayers and the wages of working Americans. MCIR therefore takes a strong interest in seeing implementation of NEPA live up to the statute’s mandate that the federal government engage in environmentally informed decision-making. 

Kevin Lynn

Plaintiff Kevin Lynn is the executive director at Progressives for Immigration Reform (PFIR), which exists to protect American workers from unemployment and wage suppression caused by unfair labor and trade practices. He is a graduate of Kemper Military College, a former Second Lieutenant in the U.S. army’s military intelligence, and professionally has worked at Ernst and Young, technology startups, and a tax consulting firm. He now resides in Lancaster County, Pa., and was born in Bucks County, Pa. He is an ardent environmentalist and a member of a number of environmental organizations, such as Respect Farmland and Lancaster Against Pipelines.

Linda Huhn

Plaintiff Linda Huhn is an environmental activist who lives in Minneapolis. She was born in Minnesota and has lived there for most of her life. Ms. Huhn has been involved in environmental activism for decades. She has been a longtime member of Zero Population Growth, the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group (founded by activist Ralph Nader), the Nature Conservancy, and the Minnesota Native Plants Society. She has been a nature enthusiast all of her life, as well as a professional nature photographer. She regularly volunteers to rehabilitate state parks and wildlife habitats.

Rob Meyer

Plaintiff Rob Meyer has spent most of his career in Minnesota and has lived in the Twin Cities since 1980. He majored in Economics at Augsburg College in Minnesota and received an MBA in Business Economics from the University of Washington. Throughout his life as an environmental activist, he has belonged to a variety of environmental organizations, including the Center for Biological Diversity, Negative Population Growth, the Trust for Public Land, Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness, Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, the National Resources Defense Council, the Minnesota Land Trust, and others.

Bruce Anderson

Bruce Anderson is a resident of Chisago City, Minnesota. When he was in high school, his parents purchased 120 acres of forest land and wetlands in north central Minnesota. It was exploring the natural landscapes and wild places on this property that sparked his love of nature and launched his natural resources education and career. He graduated from North Dakota State University in 1977 with a degree in Range Management (Botany Department) with a minor in Wildlife Management. Following graduation, he began a long career with the U.S. Forest Service as a range management specialist and wildlife biologist. He began as a range management specialist in the National Grasslands of SE North Dakota, and then continued in the Badlands of Western North Dakota, the Black Hills National Forest (NF) of South Dakota, the Custer NF in South Central Montana, Nez Perce NF in West Central Idaho, and finally the Superior NF in Northeast Minnesota. After leaving the Forest Service, he was hired by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and had a four-year career as an assistant wildlife manager in northern Minnesota.

Steven Chance Smith

Plaintiff Steven Chance Smith is a rancher who lives in the border town of Douglas, Arizona, and works as a cattle rancher on a ranch on the border between Mexico and Arizona. He deals with the consequences of the Biden Administration's creation of an environmental catastrophe on the border every day.

Gail Getzwiller

Plaintiff Gail Getzwiller is a ranch owner in Arizona. She has participated in the massive volunteer environmental clean up effort in Pima County, Arizona resulting from mass illegal border crossings.