Nazari v. Quintana
- Ronnie Abrams
- 1:22-cv-09812
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 10
In Nazari v. Quintana, Judge Abrams granted the motion to dismiss Nazari’s challenge to expedited naturalization after her husband died.
Azarnoush Nazari’s challenge to the denial of expedited naturalization was dismissed; the ruling left her eligible to seek naturalization under the standard five-year process.
What happened
In Nazari v. Quintana, Azarnoush Nazari challenged the denial of her application for expedited citizenship based on her marriage to a U.S. citizen. Her husband died while her application was pending.
The court ruled that the law requires an applicant to remain married to a U.S. citizen when the naturalization application is processed. Because Nazari’s husband had died, she could not use the expedited three-year process, so the court granted the motion to dismiss. The court also said she was eligible to apply under the standard five-year process.
Judge Ronnie Abrams explained that the statute’s wording, court decisions, and an agency regulation all supported this result. The court noted that USCIS could process a standard naturalization application expeditiously, but it did not order that application to be granted.
The detailed version
- Nazari v. Quintana · No. 1:22-cv-09812
- Ronnie Abrams
- July 24, 2023
Background
Azarnoush Nazari, an Iranian national and lawful permanent resident, applied for naturalization under Section 319(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1430(a). That provision allows the spouse of a U.S. citizen to seek citizenship after three years of lawful permanent residence, rather than the usual five-year period, if the applicant has lived in marital union with the citizen spouse during the relevant period.
Nazari married Cody William Broderick, a U.S. citizen, in December 2015. She became a lawful permanent resident on July 20, 2018, and applied for naturalization on May 5, 2021. Broderick died on September 28, 2021, while her application was pending. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services denied the application in January 2022 and later denied her request for a hearing. Nazari then brought this action seeking review of that denial.
Legal standard
The defendant moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which asks whether the complaint alleges enough facts to state a legally plausible claim. For purposes of that motion, the court accepted the complaint’s factual allegations as true but did not have to accept legal conclusions unsupported by facts.
Court’s analysis
The court held that Nazari was not eligible for expedited naturalization under § 1430(a) because her husband was no longer living when USCIS processed her application. The court relied on the statutory language referring to a person “whose spouse is a citizen of the United States,” and on Second Circuit precedent interpreting that language to require marriage to a U.S. citizen both during the required period before filing and at the time of naturalization.
The court rejected the argument that death should be treated differently from divorce. It explained that the relevant question was whether the marriage still existed when the application was processed, not why the marital relationship had ended. The court also found support in a Department of Homeland Security regulation stating that a person is ineligible for naturalization as the spouse of a U.S. citizen if the marital union ends through death or divorce before or after filing the application.
The court rejected Nazari’s reliance on other Immigration and Nationality Act provisions concerning surviving spouses and immigration benefits. Those provisions addressed different benefits, such as immigrant visas or immigration status, and did not change the requirements for expedited naturalization under § 1430(a).
Disposition
The court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss and directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the pending motion at Dkt. 22. The court did not state that the motion or case was granted or dismissed with or without prejudice. The court further stated that Nazari was eligible to seek naturalization under the standard five-year residence requirement and expressed confidence that USCIS would process an amended application expeditiously. The court did not order USCIS to grant that application.
Read the full 10-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.