UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA VIMALKUMAR HARSHADBHAI PATEL, Plaintiff, v. Civil Action No. 21-2915 (JEB) MERRICK GARLAND, et al., Defendants. MEMORANDUM OPINION Plaintiff Vimalkumar Harshadbhai Patel, a citizen of India residing in South Carolina, sought a U visa from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in 2015, which was denied in 2020. Since then, Plaintiff has filed four Motions to Reopen and Reconsider with USCIS, all of which have been unsuccessful. He then brought this suit, seeking to have his applications formally reopened, arguing that the USCIS action here was arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to the Administrative Procedure Act. Defendants — the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Director of USCIS, and the Director of the USCIS Nebraska Service Center where he applied — now move to transfer this case to the District of South Carolina. Alternatively, they ask for dismissal. As the Court agrees that transfer is the wisest course, it leaves open the question of dismissal for the transferee court. I. Background According to the Complaint and its attached exhibits, Plaintiff is an Indian citizen living in Piedmont, South Carolina. He was a victim of an armed robbery that occurred in Kinston, North Carolina, on May 15, 2012. See ECF No. 1 (Complaint), ¶¶ 5, 12. In February of 2015, 1 Patel sought a U visa — a specific type of visa “set aside for victims of certain crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse and are helpful to law enforcement or government officials in the investigation or prosecution of criminal activity.” Id., ¶¶ 10, 13. Some five years later, USCIS denied his application on the ground that Plaintiff has “a history of fraud and willful misrepresentation.” Id., ¶ 14. Patel had previously filed two I-130 Forms (Petition for Alien Relative) in April 2010 and August 2011, respectively, which were both denied for “fraud indicators and/or suspect documents.” Id. The fraud, according to USCIS, stemmed from Patel’s having two alleged marriages with no evidence of divorce for either — the first in India to an Indian citizen in 2001 and the second in the United States to a U.S. citizen in 2009. Id. The 2010 I-130 Form, however, indicated that Plaintiff had never previously been married, and the 2011 I-130 Form listed his current marital status as “single.” Id. Between May 2020 and May 2021, Patel filed four separate I-290B Motions to Reopen and Reconsider, seeking to reverse the denial of his U visa Application. Id., ¶¶ 15–20. For reasons that are unclear from the pleadings, he filed each Motion with the USCIS Service Center in Lincoln, Nebraska. Id., ¶ 9. In denying all four Petitions, USCIS asserted that the initial ground of denial — the fraud indicators related to Plaintiff’s two marriages — had not been overcome. Id., ¶¶ 15–21. He subsequently brought this suit in November 2021, claiming that the denial of his application was arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to …
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