Rashed v. Blinken

Background

Abdulla Rashed, Raja Naji, Mohammed Rashed, Ansaf Rashed, Saif Rashed, and F.R. filed a petition seeking an order requiring Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs Rena Bitter, collectively referred to as the State Department, to adjudicate their visa application. The plaintiffs alleged that the State Department unlawfully delayed the application under the Administrative Procedure Act and the Mandamus Act.

Abdulla Rashed is a lawful permanent resident of the United States. His wife and four children are citizens of Yemen. In 2016, he filed a family-based visa petition with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. That petition was approved in 2019, and an interview was scheduled at the U.S. Embassy in Djibouti. The interview occurred on December 14, 2022. At the end of the interview, a consular officer issued a refusal letter under section 221(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and placed the application in administrative processing. The officer requested additional information, including DNA evidence, evidence concerning the minor applicants’ ages, and additional financial evidence. The plaintiffs alleged that they supplied the requested information, but that the State Department took no further action before they filed their federal petition.

Motions and jurisdiction

The State Department moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction or, alternatively, under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim. The motions were unopposed. The court denied the Rule 12(b)(1) motion.

The State Department argued that the visa refusal made the plaintiffs’ request moot because they had already received the relief they sought. The court rejected that argument, reasoning that the plaintiffs sought a further decision concerning the application and relief from the administrative-processing status that followed the refusal. The State Department also argued that the consular nonreviewability doctrine barred the case. That doctrine generally prevents courts from reviewing a consular officer’s visa denial. The court held, however, that the doctrine is not jurisdictional and therefore did not support dismissal under Rule 12(b)(1). The court also stated that, without that barrier, the Administrative Procedure Act and Mandamus Act supplied a basis for federal-question jurisdiction.

Merits of the dismissal motion

The court granted the Rule 12(b)(6) motion. It adopted the analysis from a prior related proceeding involving substantially similar issues.

The plaintiffs argued that the State Department had unlawfully failed to make a final decision by placing the application into administrative processing after the interview. The court explained that the Administrative Procedure Act permits a court to compel agency action unlawfully withheld, but only when the agency failed to take a discrete action that the law requires. It also explained that mandamus relief can compel an official to perform a duty owed to the plaintiff, but cannot direct discretionary conduct.

The court held that the consular officer’s action was already a final decision. Under the applicable law and regulations, after the interview the officer must either issue or refuse the visa. The officer cannot temporarily refuse, suspend, or hold the visa for future action at that point. Because the visa was not issued, the court treated it as refused, even though the application was placed in administrative processing. The court therefore found no legally required action that it could compel under the Administrative Procedure Act.

The court dismissed the Mandamus Act claim as duplicative of the Administrative Procedure Act claim. It also stated that dismissal of those claims deprived the court of jurisdiction to grant the requested declaratory relief.

Disposition

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer granted the State Department’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion and dismissed the Complaint. The court denied the Rule 12(b)(1) motion and directed the Clerk of Court to close the motion pending at Docket 7.