UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA TARA KANGARLOO, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Civil Action No. 1:20-cv-00354 (CJN) MIKE POMPEO, Secretary, Department of State, et al., Defendants. MEMORANDUM OPINION Plaintiff Ehsan Imanifouladi is one of thousands of visa applicants whose entry to the United States was barred under executive actions restricting immigration from Imanifouladi’s home country of Iran. See generally Pls.’ Pet. for Mandamus and Compl. for Inj. & Declaratory Relief (“Pet.”), ECF No. 1. His request for a waiver of those restrictions has been pending for nearly two years. Id. ¶ 5. Imanifouladi and his relatives filed this case asking the Court to force the government to act on the waiver application, either by granting a writ of mandamus or by compelling government action under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. § 706(1). See generally id. The government moves to dismiss, arguing that the Court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction and that the Petition fails to state a claim. See generally Defs.’ Mot. to Dismiss, ECF No. 5. Although the Court has jurisdiction, it dismisses the Petition. I. Background Plaintiff Tara Kangarloo, a United States citizen residing in Virginia, married Imanifouladi in 2015 and shortly thereafter applied for an I-130 visa for her new husband. Pet. ¶ 1. Imanifouladi is an Iranian citizen living in Iran. Id. ¶¶ 1, 5. After going through several 1 steps in the visa-application process, Imanifouladi traveled to the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, where he interviewed with a consular officer on June 22, 2016. Id. ¶ 1. Immediately upon completion of the interview, the consular officer refused Imanifouladi’s visa application under section 221(g) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. § 1201(g), pending further administrative processing. Id. While Imanifouladi was waiting for further word, the President promulgated a series of executive orders “impos[ing] entry restrictions on nationals of countries that do not share adequate information for an informed entry determination, or that otherwise present national security risks.” Trump v. Hawaii, 138 S. Ct. 2392, 2403 (2018); see also id. at 2403–04 (describing the various executive actions implementing the visa restrictions). As relevant here, the President issued Presidential Proclamation 9645 on September 24, 2017, “plac[ing] entry restrictions on the nationals of eight foreign states [including Iran] whose systems for managing and sharing information about their nationals the President deemed inadequate.” Id. at 2404 (citing Presidential Proclamation No. 9645, Enhancing Vetting Capabilities and Processes for Detecting Attempted Entry into the United States by Terrorists or Other Public-Safety Threats (“Proclamation”), 82 Fed. Reg. 45,161 (Sep. 24, 2017)). A federal district court in Hawaii enjoined the Proclamation’s enforcement weeks after it was issued. Hawaii v. Trump, 265 F. Supp. 3d 1140, 1155–59 (D. Haw. 2017). On November 6, 2017—more than a year after the first interview and a little over a month after the nationwide injunction went into effect—the Embassy contacted Imanifouladi to inform him that his application’s processing was complete and that he was required to conduct a second interview on January 24, ...
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