UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA _________________________________________ ) FATMA MAROUF, et al., ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) v. ) Case No. 18-cv-00378 (APM) ) ALEX AZAR, in his official capacity as ) Secretary of the UNITED STATES ) DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN ) SERVICES, et al., ) ) Defendants. ) _________________________________________ ) MEMORANDUM OPINION I. INTRODUCTION The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) awards grant money and enters into cooperative agreements with various child welfare organizations to perform services for unaccompanied refugee children who have entered the United States. HHS grantees include religiously affiliated organizations, such as Defendant U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (“USCCB”). The child welfare services that HHS grantees provide include foster care, residential placement, and adoption services. Plaintiffs Fatma Marouf and Bryn Esplin live in Fort Worth, Texas. They wish to become foster parents for an unaccompanied refugee child. In February 2017, they sought out information about foster care programs from Catholic Charities of Fort Worth, a sub-grantee of USCCB. Plaintiffs quickly learned that they would not be approved as foster parents. The reason: they are a married lesbian couple. Catholic Charities of Fort Worth would not qualify them as foster parents because of its religious beliefs regarding same-sex marriage and raising a child within a traditional family structure. Plaintiffs then brought this action. They assert violations of the Establishment Clause and the Equal Protection Clause and a deprivation of Substantive Due Process. Plaintiffs allege that HHS unconstitutionally awarded grant money to USCCB, despite knowing that USCCB and its sub-grantees, due to their religious beliefs, would use taxpayer funds in a manner that discriminates against same-sex couples. The merits of Plaintiffs’ case are not yet before the court. Instead, Defendants challenge Plaintiffs’ standing to bring suit. For the reasons that follow, the court grants Defendants’ Motions to Dismiss in part. The court agrees with Defendants that no Plaintiff has taxpayer standing to assert a violation of the Establishment Clause. Because the sole cause of action brought by Plaintiff National LGBT Bar Association is the Establishment Clause claim, it is dismissed from this case. On the other hand, the court finds that Plaintiffs Marouf and Esplin have sufficiently pleaded individual standing to pursue all three causes of action. The court therefore denies the remainder of Defendants’ Motions. II. BACKGROUND A. Factual Background 1. The Unaccompanied Refugee Minor Program and the Unaccompanied Alien Children Program At issue in this case are two federal programs whose purpose is to provide support for the “thousands of unaccompanied refugee children” under the care of the federal government: (1) the Unaccompanied Refugee Minor Program (“URM Program”) and (2) the Unaccompanied Alien Children Program (“UC Program”). Am. Compl., ECF No. 21 [hereinafter Am. Compl.] ¶¶ 16– 2 18. These programs are administered through the Office of Refugee Resettlement (“ORR”), which is housed within HHS. See id. ¶ 10. Two pieces of legislation authorize the URM and UC Programs: the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 ...
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Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals