FILED NOT FOR PUBLICATION JAN 27 2022 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT LUCENE BECHIRIAN; RAFFI No. 20-55913 ATASHIAN, D.C. No. Plaintiffs-Appellants, 2:20-cv-01718-PSG-JEM v. MEMORANDUM* ANTONY BLINKEN, as Secretary of State; UR M. JADDOU, Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; MERRICK B. GARLAND, Attorney General; ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, as Secretary of Department of Homeland Security; UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE; UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE; U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY; UNITED STATES CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES; JANE DOE, Consular Officer of United States Embassy, Lebanon; UNITED STATES EMBASSY, LEBANON, Defendants-Appellees. Appeal from the United States District Court * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. for the Central District of California Philip S. Gutierrez, Chief District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted January 13, 2022 Pasadena, California Before: RAWLINSON and WATFORD, Circuit Judges, and RAKOFF,** District Judge. Lucene Bechirian (Bechirian) appeals the district court’s dismissal of her complaint alleging that a consular officer of the United States Department of State improperly denied the visa application of her noncitizen fiancé, Raffi Atashian (Atashian). Bechirian specifically contends that the district court erred in holding that her claims were barred under the doctrine of consular nonreviewability. Bechirian further asserts that, because U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) terminated her petition after four months, she was deprived of a property interest in approval of her petition and her fundamental right to marry in violation of her due process rights. The district court properly dismissed Bechirian’s due process claims under the doctrine of consular nonreviewability.1 The doctrine of consular ** The Honorable Jed S. Rakoff, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation. 1 Bechirian limits her appeal to the district court’s dismissal of her due process claims, and does not challenge the district court’s dismissal of her other claims. 2 nonreviewability bars review of the denial of a noncitizen’s visa application when “the consular officer cited an admissibility statute that specifies discrete factual predicates the consular officer must find to exist before denying a visa or . . . alternatively, there is a fact in the record that provides at least a facial connection to the statutory ground of inadmissibility.” Khachatryan v. Blinken, 4 F.4th 841, 851 (9th Cir. 2021) (citation, alteration, and internal quotation marks omitted). In denying Atashian’s visa application, the consular officer cited to 8 U.S.C. § 1201(g),2 which “specifies discrete factual predicates the consular officer must find to exist before denying a visa.” Khachatryan, 4 F.4th at 851 (citation omitted); see also 8 U.S.C. § 1201(g); Allen v. Milas, 896 F.3d 1094, 1107 (9th Cir. 2018) (recognizing that 8 U.S.C. § 1201(g) “instructs” a consular officer “not to issue a visa if the officer knows or has reason to believe that such [noncitizen] is ineligible to receive a visa under any provision of law”) (citation, footnote reference, and internal quotation marks omitted). …
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