UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA YUNG-KAI LU, Plaintiff, v. Civil Action No. 17-1028 (JEB) REX W. TILLERSON Defendant. MEMORANDUM OPINION Plaintiff Yung-Kai Lu, proceeding pro se, is a citizen and resident of Taiwan. In 2015, Lu was the lucky winner of the “visa lottery” for lawful admission to the United States. Yet his victory proved hollow, as he was never granted a visa. Lu then brought this suit alleging that this 2015 visa deprivation was based on unreasonable delays on the part of the State Department, as well as on other unconnected events. As relief, Plaintiff asked this Court to compel Defendant Secretary of State to extend the time for a visa interview for his 2015 application. In now moving to dismiss, the Government asserts that it can do no such thing. According to Defendant, once the 2015 fiscal year expired, so too did the statutory authority for the issuance of Lu’s Diversity Visa. State argues both that Plaintiff’s claims are thus moot, thereby depriving this Court of subject-matter jurisdiction, and that his statutory causes of action fail to adequately state a claim for relief. As the case is indeed moot, the Court will dismiss it. I. Background According to the Complaint, which the Court must credit at this stage, Plaintiff entered the Department of State’s Diversity Visa (DV) program for fiscal year 2015. See ECF No. 1, ¶¶ 1 19-20. Fiscal year 2015 ran from October 1, 2014, to September 30, 2015. Id., Exh. 1. Lu had previously resided in the United States and had applied (to no avail) for a Diversity Visa since 2002. His 2015 application, however, proved auspicious. Although there is an apparent inconsistency between the Complaint and the record evidence as to when Lu was notified that his application had been chosen, see Compl., ¶ 20 (stating that Lu was notified in “early October 2015” that he was selected); but see ECF No. 1-2, Exh. 1 (Notification Letter) (letter notifying Lu of selection dated May 1, 2014), there is no dispute that he was in fact an FY 2015 selectee. In any event, the State Department notification letter informed Plaintiff that he had been selected out of the FY 2015 applicant pool for “further processing,” but cautioned that “selection [did] not guarantee that [he would] receive a visa.” Notification Letter. The letter went on to provide a series of instructions for Lu to follow “to increase [his] chances of possible visa issuance,” which included registering with the online DS-260 Immigrant Visa and Registration Application. Id. Finally, the Department informed Lu that his case would “not be scheduled for an interview appointment until a visa number is available,” and that, were an interview to be scheduled, Lu would receive notification. Id. Lu submitted his DS-260, but never received notification of an interview. (The Court notes that, although both Plaintiff and Defendant state that Lu submitted the DS-260 visa application form in October 2015, see Compl., ¶ 20; MTD at 3, the record ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals