Yeganeh v. Mayorkas

Background

The plaintiffs included Iranian nationals who applied for visas or naturalization, along with U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents who filed family-based visa petitions for Iranian-national relatives. They alleged that their applications were denied, or would be denied, under the terrorism-related inadmissibility grounds (TRIG) because of prior service in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). They sought an order requiring the defendants to create a waiver or exemption process for people whose IRGC service made them ineligible.

The plaintiffs asserted claims under the Administrative Procedure Act and the Fifth Amendment’s due-process guarantee. They alleged that the government treated former IRGC members as automatically inadmissible, did not provide a consistent process for submitting waiver evidence, and did not meaningfully review claims involving involuntary service.

Subject-Matter Jurisdiction

The court first addressed whether particular claims could be heard by a federal court.

Three plaintiffs—Ahvan Ghaderi, Mehrdad Mohtadi, and Ali Khadempar—had visa applications denied under an additional provision of the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act. Because the complaint challenged only the denials based on the terrorism-related inadmissibility grounds, the court concluded that eliminating those grounds would not likely provide relief from the separate statutory denials. The court therefore dismissed those visa-denial claims for lack of standing under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), which permits dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.

The court reached a different conclusion for three plaintiffs with pending immigrant-visa applications: Ali Rashidi Alavijeh, Babk Parhoudeh, and Mehrdad Mohtadi. Based on the IRGC’s designation as a Tier I foreign terrorist organization and the government’s stated policy regarding immigrant-visa applicants who served in the IRGC, the court held that it could firmly predict that their immigrant visas would be denied. The court therefore denied the motion as to those claims at the jurisdiction stage. The court separately noted that Mohtadi’s past F-1 nonimmigrant-visa denial was not redressable because that denial rested on the additional statutory ground.

The court dismissed the claims of Arash Mikaeli, Roozbeh Lari, and Seyed Ebrahim Kassaian as unripe under Rule 12(b)(1). Their naturalization applications were still pending, and the court found no sufficient basis to firmly predict that they would be denied because of their prior IRGC service. Their claims depended on future events that might not occur.

Failure to State a Claim

The defendants also moved under Rule 12(b)(6), which permits dismissal when a complaint does not adequately state a legally supportable claim. They argued that the plaintiffs’ Administrative Procedure Act claims were barred from judicial review by the doctrine that generally limits review of consular visa decisions and by the statute’s assignment of exemption decisions to the secretaries’ sole unreviewable discretion. They also argued that the plaintiffs lacked constitutionally protected interests supporting their due-process claims.

The court found that the plaintiffs did not meaningfully respond to those arguments. Their opposition brief did not cite supporting legal authority, did not adequately address the defendants’ arguments, and did not defend the constitutional claims. The court held that the plaintiffs had waived and abandoned their responses to the Rule 12(b)(6) motion. It therefore granted the motion to dismiss all remaining claims for failure to state a claim.

Disposition

The court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss. It dismissed the claims of Ahvan Ghaderi, Mehrdad Mohtadi, Ali Khadempar, Arash Mikaeli, Roozbeh Lari, and Seyed Ebrahim Kassaian for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(1), and dismissed all other claims for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6). The court dismissed the complaint with prejudice because it concluded that allowing amendment would be futile after the plaintiffs failed to meaningfully defend their claims. The court stated that it was not addressing the merits of issues such as the scope or application of consular nonreviewability. The clerk was directed to enter judgment and close the case.