UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA OMAR AMEEN, Plaintiff, Civil Action No. 21-1399 (BAH) v. Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE, et al., Defendants. MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER Pending before the Court is defendants United States Department of State (“State Department”), Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), and United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) motion to dismiss plaintiff Omar Ameen’s lawsuit for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Defs.’ Mot. Dismiss (“Defs.’ Mot.”), ECF No. 11. Plaintiff was previously represented by the Office of the Federal Defender for the Eastern District of California in an extradition case, and plaintiff’s then-counsel made five requests under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) seeking to compel defendants to produce records for use in that litigation. Compl. ¶¶ 2, 15, ECF No. 1. Plaintiff prevailed in his extradition case, id. ¶ 15, but now faces deportation proceedings, id. ¶ 19. Plaintiff brought this FOIA suit seeking the documents requested by his then-counsel in connection with the earlier extradition matter. Compl. at 12 (“Pl.’s Request for Relief”). Defendants contend that plaintiff’s claims should be dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because the underlying document requests were made by plaintiff’s attorney and did not sufficiently make clear that they were made on plaintiff’s behalf. Defs.’ Mem. Supp. Mot. Dismiss (“Defs.’ Mem.”) at 1, ECF No. 11-1. For the following reasons, defendants’ motion is denied. 1 I. BACKGROUND Plaintiff is an Iraqi refugee residing in Sacramento, California. Compl. ¶¶ 8–9. Plaintiff “left Iraq for Turkey in early 2012,” id. ¶ 10, and, after applying for refugee status with the United Nations, arrived in the United States in 2014, id. ¶¶ 10–11. He was arrested in August of 2018, however, on charges that he “murdered an Iraqi police officer in [Iraq] in June of 2014[,]” id. ¶ 12, and the government “sought his immediate extradition to Iraq,” id. ¶ 13. After two years of extradition proceedings, the presiding judge ultimately “declined to extradite” plaintiff, id. ¶ 15, because the government’s key witnesses were “unreliable,” id. ¶ 17 and the “series of events [was] simply not plausible,” id. ¶ 18. On the same day that plaintiff was scheduled for release, “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took [plaintiff] into custody for allegedly defrauding the government by lying about his alleged terrorist connections[,]” and plaintiff “now faces deportation proceedings.” Id. ¶ 19. The Office of the Federal Defender for the Eastern District of California represented plaintiff in his extradition proceedings and made five separate FOIA requests to the defendant agencies seeking various records from the respective agencies regarding plaintiff and the extradition case, in which plaintiff was a defendant. Specifically, in 2019, plaintiff’s counsel submitted two requests to the State Department, id. ¶¶ 20, 59, one to the FBI, id. ¶ 31, and one to DOJ, id. ¶ 38. In January of 2020, plaintiff’s counsel submitted an additional FOIA request to DOJ. Id. ¶ 67. Each request mentioned plaintiff by name, stated that the Federal Defender’s office …
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