UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ARI AKRAYI, Plaintiff, v. Case No. 22-cv-1289 (CRC) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE et. al., Defendants. MEMORANDUM OPINION Plaintiff Ari Akrayi, a United States citizen, has been waiting nearly three years for the government to adjudicate his Iraqi wife’s U.S. visa application. Claiming unreasonable delay under the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), he filed this suit to compel the State Department to do so. Akrayi also challenges an internal Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) initiative—the Controlled Application Review and Resolution Program (“CARRP”)— that applies heightened screening to visa applications with potential national security concerns. Because Akrayi has not met his burden to plausibly allege an unreasonable delay, a violation of his due process rights, or a concrete injury due to CARRP, the Court will grant the government’s motion to dismiss the complaint. I. Background Mr. Akrayi filed an I-130 visa petition in April 2019 to obtain lawful permanent resident status for his wife, Zhala Ibrahim Jameel, an Iraqi citizen. Compl. ¶¶ 2, 11, 13–15. Almost a year later, in March 2020, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) approved the petition. Id. ¶ 15. Akrayi’s petition was then processed by the National Visa Center (“NVC”), which forwarded the case to the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi. Id. ¶ 16. Jameel has yet to be interviewed by the Embassy. See id. ¶¶ 17–18. Akrayi has repeatedly attempted to obtain a decision from USCIS, including contacting the NVC numerous times. Id. ¶ 19. But to no avail. Id. Akrayi further alleges “[o]n information and belief” that the government is intentionally delaying a response to Jameel’s visa application through CARRP. Compl. ¶¶ 25–30. The complaint describes CARRP as an internal DHS policy that flags visa applications that present potential national security concerns and directs field officers to deny the applications or at least delay their adjudication. Id. ¶¶ 25, 28. But by casting too wide a net, Akrayi claims, the CARRP policy errs by labeling “innocent, law-abiding” residents, like Jameel, as “national security concerns.” Id. ¶ 29. Akrayi also asserts that CARRP targets applications from predominantly Muslim countries. See id. ¶¶ 26, 30. In May 2022, Akrayi brought suit against several government officials and agencies under the APA’s unreasonable delay provision, 5 U.S.C. § 706(1), and the Mandamus Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1361. He requests an order directing the government to process Jameel’s visa application within sixty days and issue her an immigrant visa, and seeks declaratory and injunctive relief as to CARRP. The government moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). II. Legal Standards To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, “a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ramirez v. Blinken, 594 F. Supp. 3d 76, 85 (D.D.C. 2022) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)). At this stage, courts must “accept all the well-pleaded factual …
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