UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA MANOUCHEHR JAFARZADEH & SHAHNAZ KARAMI, Plaintiffs, v. Civil Action No. 16-1385 (JDB) KIRSTJEN NIELSEN, Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, et al. 1 Defendants. MEMORANDUM OPINION All that is old in this case has been made new again. Manouchehr Jafarzadeh, an Iranian national seeking to become a lawful permanent resident (“LPR”) of the United States, alleges that his application was placed in a government program that delays and denies immigration petitions on overly broad national security grounds. The government filed a motion to dismiss the first complaint in this matter, arguing, among other things, that the issues in the case must be adjudicated in removal proceedings, to which the government had already consigned Jafarzadeh. The Court granted the motion as to some aspects of the complaint, but rejected the idea that the Court lacked jurisdiction and denied the motion as to most of the claims raised. That complaint has since been amended, but the new version includes many of the same allegations and causes of action as the original. And the government has responded in kind, with another motion to dismiss that raises many—but not all—of the same arguments it raised the first time around. As before, the Court finds that it has jurisdiction, and that some—but not all—claims can proceed. 1 Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of Homeland Security, and L. Francis Cissna, Director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, have been automatically substituted for their predecessors pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 25(d). 1 BACKGROUND Jafarzadeh is an Iranian citizen who has lived legally and continuously in the United States since he entered the country on a student visa in 1979. See Am. Compl. [ECF No. 30] ¶ 8. He has been married since 1982 to plaintiff Shahnaz Karami, an Iranian citizen and American LPR who has continuously resided in the United States since 1978. Id. ¶¶ 7, 9. Plaintiffs have three adult daughters, all of whom are American citizens and reside in the United States. Id. ¶ 9. Jafarzadeh worked for the Interests Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is housed in the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, D.C., from June 1991 until he was denied LPR status in 2017. Id. ¶ 20. On January 25, 2010, plaintiffs’ daughter Razeyeh filed a Form I-130 Petition for Alien Relative on behalf of Jafarzadeh, and Jafarzadeh concurrently filed a Form I-485 Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status as her immediate relative. Id. ¶¶ 1, 21. Both petitions remained pending at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), for over six years. Id. ¶ 21. During those years, Jafarzadeh was interviewed twice by USCIS—once in 2011 and once in 2014—and was interviewed or contacted a number of times by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Id. ¶¶ 22–23. Jafarzadeh believed, based on the “content and nature of these interviews,” that the FBI wanted him to become a government informant, ...
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