UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA VALERIY KARAKENYAN, Plaintiff, v. Civil Action No. 20-346 (JEB) U.S. CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION, et al., Defendants. MEMORANDUM OPINION This case presents the latest installment in Plaintiff Valeriy Karakenyan’s long-running quest to qualify for the EB-5 visa program, a category reserved for aliens who make qualifying investments in United States commercial projects. Plaintiff enjoyed some success when Defendant United States Citizenship and Immigration Services approved his initial petition, but he was ultimately stymied when the agency revoked that approval. Karakenyan believes that he satisfied the prerequisites for the EB-5 program and that USCIS and Defendant Department of State violated the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Administrative Procedure Act in denying him access to it. He asks the Court, among other things, to set aside USCIS’s revocation of his petition and declare that he is eligible for an EB-5 visa. The Government does not parry Plaintiff’s arguments on the merits but instead moves to dismiss on jurisdictional grounds. This is a wise strategy, as the Court agrees with Defendants that Congress has divested courts of jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s claims against USCIS, which present non-justiciable challenges to the merits of the agency’s revocation decision. Karakenyan’s attempts to recast this substantive challenge as a procedural one or as presenting a 1 predicate legal question fare no better. Nor does he gain traction in suing the State Department as he lacks standing to pursue this Defendant. The Court will therefore grant the Motion. I. Background A. EB-5 Program One of myriad creations of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program “grants legal resident status to qualified foreign nationals who invest capital in a new commercial enterprise.” Wang v. U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Servs., 375 F. Supp. 3d 22, 26 (D.D.C. 2019); see also 8 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(5). To qualify for an EB-5 visa, an individual must invest at least $1 million into a new, restructured, or expanded business or commercial project in the United States. See 8 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(5). The investment must, among other things, create at least ten full-time jobs for United States workers, and the applicant must demonstrate that she “will be engaged in the new commercial enterprise, either through the exercise of day-to-day managerial control or through policy formulation.” 7 C.F.R. § 204.6(j); see also 8 U.S.C. § 1153(b)(5). Participating in the EB-5 process is no stroll in the garden, however; it involves several stages and unfolds over a period of years. An individual must first submit a Form I-526 petition to USCIS to “establish that he or she is eligible for the requested benefit at the time of filing the benefit request.” 8 C.F.R. § 103.2(b)(1). If her petition is approved, she may apply for two-year conditional-permanent-resident status — also referred to as a conditional green card —from either within the United States (referred to as an “adjustment of status”) or overseas from the State Department at a consular post in the alien’s home country (referred to ...
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