Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-04-05395/USCOURTS-caDC-04-05395-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

---

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 10, 2005 Decided February 17, 2006

Reissued June 7, 2006

No. 04-5395

MENACHEM BINYAMIN ZIVOTOFSKY, BY HIS PARENTS AND

GUARDIANS, ARI Z. AND NAOMI SIEGMAN ZIVOTOFSKY,

APPELLANT

v.

SECRETARY OF STATE,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 03cv01921)

Nathan Lewin argued the cause for appellant. With him on

the briefs was Alyza D. Lewin.

Steven Lieberman was on the brief for amici curiae

American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, et al. in

support of appellant.

Paul Kujawsky was on the brief for amici curiae

Congressmembers Henry A. Waxman, et al.

USCA Case #04-5395 Document #950256 Filed: 02/17/2006 Page 1 of 11
2

Douglas N. Letter, Litigation Counsel, U.S. Department of

Justice, argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief

were Peter D. Keisler, Assistant Attorney General, Kenneth L.

Wainstein, U.S. Attorney, Gregory G. Katsas, Deputy Assistant

Attorney General, and Lewis Yelin, Attorney.

Before: SENTELLE, RANDOLPH, and ROGERS, Circuit

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge RANDOLPH.

RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge: Menachem Binyamin

Zivotofsky was born in Jerusalem on October 17, 2002. As a

child of U.S. citizens who have resided in the United States, he

also is a U.S. citizen. 8 U.S.C. § 1401(c). The ultimate issue in

this appeal is whether § 214(d) of the Foreign Relations

Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2003, Pub. L. No. 107-228, 116

Stat. 1350, 1365-66 (2002) (“Authorization Act”), entitles

Menachem to have “Israel” listed on his U.S. passport as his

place of birth. The district court did not reach the issue. It

dismissed the complaint for lack of standing and because it

believed the case presented a political question it could not

resolve. 

I.

The complaint alleges that Menachem’s mother visited the

Embassy of the United States in Tel Aviv, Israel (“Embassy”),

on December 24, 2002, to request that her son be registered as

a U.S. citizen and issued a passport and Consular Report of

Birth Abroad with his place of birth designated as “Jerusalem,

Israel.” A Consular Birth Report is “a formal document

certifying the acquisition of U.S. citizenship at birth of a person

born abroad.” 7 U.S.DEPARTMENT OF STATE,FOREIGN AFFAIRS

MANUAL (“FAM”) § 1441(a). Embassy officials denied Mrs.

USCA Case #04-5395 Document #950256 Filed: 02/17/2006 Page 2 of 11
3

1

 The complaint sought an injunction requiring the

Secretary of State to issue Menachem a passport and Consular

Birth Report with “Jerusalem, Israel” recorded as his place of

birth. Plaintiff’s counsel came to realize that § 214(d) speaks

only in terms of “Israel.” In his memorandum in support of

summary judgment in the district court and in his briefs and oral

argument on appeal, he sought only the designation “Israel.”

The government also treats the case as raising the question

whether § 214(d) entitles Menachem to that relief, and the

government has no objection to our doing the same. 

Zivotofsky’s request. According to her declaration, they told

her that although “the issue ha[d] been debated in Congress it

ha[d] not become law.” The Embassy issued a passport listing

Menachem’s place of birth as “Jerusalem” and a Consular Birth

Report designating his birthplace as “Jerusalem.” Neither

document lists a country of birth.

A few months before Mrs. Zivotofsky visited the Embassy,

the President signed the Authorization Act into law. Section

214 is titled “United States policy with respect to Jerusalem as

the capital of Israel.” Subsection (a) “urges the President” to

relocate the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Subsections

(b) and (c) concern the use of appropriated funds. Subsection

(d), which is the focus of this appeal, provides:

For purposes of the registration of birth, certification of

nationality, or issuance of a passport of a United States

citizen born in the city of Jerusalem, the Secretary shall,

upon the request of the citizen or the citizen’s legal

guardian, record the place of birth as Israel.

Authorization Act § 214(d).1

USCA Case #04-5395 Document #950256 Filed: 02/17/2006 Page 3 of 11
4

When the President signed the Authorization Act into law,

he made the following statement regarding § 214:

Section 214, concerning Jerusalem, impermissibly

interferes with the President’s constitutional authority to

conduct the Nation’s foreign affairs and to supervise the

unitary executive branch. Moreover, the purported

direction in section 214 would, if construed as mandatory

rather than advisory, impermissibly interfere with the

President’s constitutional authority to formulate the position

of the United States, speak for the Nation in international

affairs, and determine the terms on which recognition is

given to foreign states. U.S. policy regarding Jerusalem has

not changed.

Statement by President George W. Bush Upon Signing H.R.

1646, 2002 U.S.C.C.A.N. 931, 932 (Sept. 30, 2002). The status

of Jerusalem is, as a matter of U.S. policy, “a matter to be

resolved by negotiation between the Israelis and Palestinians” in

light of their competing claims of sovereignty over the city. Br.

for Appellee 7.

Section 214 of the Authorization Act conflicts with

instructions in the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual.

As a “general rule,” consular officers must “enter the country of

the applicant’s birth in the passport.” 7 FAM § 1383.1(a). It is

the State Department’s “policy [to] show[] the birthplace as the

country having present sovereignty.” Id. § 1383.5-4 (Palestine);

see also id. § 1383.5-5 (Israel-Occupied Areas). But when “the

birthplace of the applicant is located in territory disputed by

another country, the city or area of birth may be written in the

passport.” Id. § 1383.5-2 (Disputed Territory). The Manual

generally gives U.S. citizens born abroad the option of listing

the city of birth “when there are objections to the country listing

shown on the [Department’s] birthplace guide.” Id. § 1383.6(a)

USCA Case #04-5395 Document #950256 Filed: 02/17/2006 Page 4 of 11
5

2

 We will assume, as the parties do, that the State

Department’s policies regarding place of birth transcription on

Consular Birth Reports are the same as they are for passports.

See 7 FAM § 1445.5-1 (Children Previously Documented as

U.S. Citizens).

(City of Birth Listing). For applicants wishing to exercise this

option, the Manual requires consular officers to inform them of

the “difficulties which they may encounter in traveling to, or

obtaining visas for entry into, certain foreign countries.” Id.

§ 1383.6(b).2

The Manual has special rules regarding Israel and the

occupied territories. For example, if a passport applicant was

“born [before 1948] in the area formerly known as Palestine,”

the passport may “show Palestine as the birthplace in individual

cases upon consideration of all the circumstances”; if the

applicant was born in 1948 or thereafter, “the city or town of

birth may be listed if the applicant objects to showing the

country having present sovereignty.” Id. § 1383.5-4. The same

is true of “Israel-Occupied Areas,” such as the Golan Heights,

the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. See id. § 1383.5-5. With

regard to Jerusalem, the Manual differentiates between

applicants born before and after the existence of an official

Israeli state. See id. § 1383.5-6 (Jerusalem). For those like

Menachem – a citizen born in Jerusalem after May 14, 1948 –

the Manual requires the person’s place of birth to be recorded as

“JERUSALEM.” See id. § 1383.1(b) (requiring compliance

with the “birthplace transcription guide” when “entering the

place of birth in the passport”); id. § 1383 Ex. 1383.1, Pt. II

(Birthplace Transcription Guide for Use in Preparing Passports)

(JERUSALEM) (citing id. §§ 1383.5-5, .5-6); see also id.

(ISRAEL) (indicating that Israel “[d]oes not include Jerusalem”)

(citing id. § 1383.5-5).

USCA Case #04-5395 Document #950256 Filed: 02/17/2006 Page 5 of 11
6

3

 Menachem did not claim that he was experiencing

“difficulties . . . in traveling to, or obtaining visas for entry into,

certain foreign countries” because his passport indicates his city

of birth. 7 FAM § 1383.6(b).

II.

As to Menachem’s standing to bring this action, the

government argues that he cannot satisfy the injury-in-fact

requirement derived from Article III of the Constitution. See

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). He is

now only three years old. The claim that someday, when he is

older, he might suffer psychological harm from the Secretary’s

passport decision is, the government argues, purely conjectural

and in any event not an imminent injury, as the law requires.3

However that may be, we think he has suffered another sort of

injury in fact and therefore has standing.

The Supreme Court has recognized that “Congress may

enact statutes creating legal rights, the invasion of which creates

standing, even though no injury would exist without the statute.”

Linda R.S. v. Richard D., 410 U.S. 614, 617 n.3 (1973). Or

stated differently, “Congress may create a statutory right or

entitlement the alleged deprivation of which can confer standing

to sue even where the plaintiff would have suffered no judicially

cognizable injury in the absence of statute.” Warth v. Seldin,

422 U.S. 490, 514 (1975); see Lujan, 504 U.S. at 578.

A common example of such a statute is the Freedom of

Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. § 552. Anyone whose

request for specific information has been denied has standing to

bring an action; the requester’s circumstances – why he wants

the information, what he plans to do with it, what harm he

USCA Case #04-5395 Document #950256 Filed: 02/17/2006 Page 6 of 11
7

4

 For this reason, no one questioned the plaintiffs’

standing in Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Nat’l Energy Policy Dev.

Group, 219 F. Supp. 2d 20 (D.D.C. 2002), ordered dismissed by

In re Cheney, 406 F.3d 723, 731 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (en banc).

suffered from the failure to disclose – are irrelevant to his

standing. See, e.g., Pub. Citizen v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 491

U.S. 440, 449 (1989). The requester is injured-in-fact for

standing purposes because he did not get what the statute

entitled him to receive. See FEC v. Akins, 524 U.S. 11, 23-25

(1998); id. at 30-31 (Scalia, J., dissenting); Pub. Citizen v. U.S.

Dep’t of Justice, 491 U.S. at 449; Pub. Citizen v. FTC, 869 F.2d

1541, 1548 n.13 (D.C. Cir. 1989); Rushforth v. Council of Econ.

Advisers, 762 F.2d 1038, 1039 n.3 (D.C. Cir. 1985); Brandon v.

Eckard, 569 F.2d 683, 687-88 (D.C. Cir. 1977). The same

injury can give a plaintiff standing to enforce the Government

in the Sunshine Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552b, see Rushforth, 762 F.2d

at 1039 n.3, and the Federal Advisory Committee Act, 5 U.S.C.

app. 2 §§ 1-16, see Pub. Citizen v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 491

U.S. at 449.4

 Other Supreme Court statutory standing cases are

similar. The “Supreme Court has expressly ruled that persons

seeking to vindicate a statutory right to information have

standing even if they know or should know that the untruthful

information they receive is false, see Havens Realty [Corp. v.

Coleman, 455 U.S. 363, 374 (1982)], and even if the information

is available to them through other channels, see [Va. State Bd.

of Pharmacy v. Va. Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U.S.

748, 757 n.15 (1976)].” Pub. Citizen v. FTC, 869 F.2d 1541,

1548 n.13 (D.C. Cir. 1989).

The Supreme Court has qualified statutory standing in one

respect. In Lujan the Court held that the citizen-suit provision

of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 § 11(g), 16 U.S.C.

§ 1540(g), could not bestow standing on plaintiffs who claimed

no “particularized” injury, but only a generalized interest shared

USCA Case #04-5395 Document #950256 Filed: 02/17/2006 Page 7 of 11
8

5

 This case would be like Lujan if someone born in the

United States with no connection to anyone born in Jerusalem

sued the State Department claiming that it was violating

§ 214(d) by not complying with requests of U.S. citizens born in

Jerusalem to put “Israel” on their passports.

by all citizens in the proper administration of the law. 504 U.S.

at 573-74; see also Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 738

(1972) (“[Statutory] broadening [of] the categories of injury that

may be alleged in support of standing is a different matter from

abandoning the requirement that the party seeking review must

himself have suffered an injury.”). By “particularized” the

Court meant “that the injury must affect the plaintiff in a

personal and individual way.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560 n.1.

While a person would have standing to vindicate his “individual

right” created by statute, “the public interest in the proper

administration of the laws . . . [cannot] be converted into an

individual right by a statute that denominates it as such, and that

permits all citizens (or, for that matter, a subclass of citizens

who suffer no distinctive concrete harm) to sue.” Id. at 576-77.

Otherwise, the federal courts would intrude upon the President’s

constitutional duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully

executed,” U.S. CONST. art. II, § 3, in violation of the separation

of powers. Lujan, 504 U.S. at 577.5

Menachem’s case presents no such problem. When a

plaintiff is the “object of [government] action (or forgone

action) . . . . there is ordinarily little question that the action or

inaction has caused him injury, and that a judgment preventing

or requiring the action will redress it.” Id. at 561-62. Although

it is natural to think of an injury in terms of some economic,

physical, or psychological damage, a concrete and particular

injury for standing purposes can also consist of the violation of

an individual right conferred on a person by statute. Such an

injury is concrete because it is of “a form traditionally capable

USCA Case #04-5395 Document #950256 Filed: 02/17/2006 Page 8 of 11
9

of judicial resolution,” Schlesinger v. Reservists Comm. to Stop

the War, 418 U.S. 208, 220-21 (1974), and it is particular

because, as the violation of an individual right, it “affect[s] the

plaintiff in a personal and individual way,” Lujan, 504 U.S. at

560 n.1. 

The injuries in the FOIA cases mentioned above are of this

sort. See Sargeant v. Dixon, 130 F.3d 1067, 1070 (D.C. Cir.

1997) (“The receipt of information is a tangible benefit the

denial of which constitutes an injury.”). And so is Menachem’s.

See Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 751-52 (1984) (“In many

cases the standing question can be answered chiefly by

comparing the allegations of the particular complaint to those

made in prior standing cases.”). His allegation that Congress

conferred on him an individual right to have “Israel” listed as his

place of birth on his passport and on his Consular Birth Report

is at the least a colorable reading of the statute. He also alleges

that the Secretary of State violated that individual right. This is

sufficient for Article III standing. See Reservists Comm. to Stop

the War, 418 U.S. at 224 n.14. Menachem’s injury is not “too

abstract,” the connection between the allegedly illegal conduct

and the injury is not “too attenuated,” and the prospect of his

obtaining relief from a favorable ruling is not “too speculative.”

Allen, 468 U.S. at 752. Under Article III of the Constitution, the

“imperatives of a dispute capable of judicial resolution are

sharply presented issues in a concrete factual setting and selfinterested parties vigorously advocating opposing positions.”

U.S. Parole Comm’n v. Geraghty, 445 U.S. 388, 403 (1980).

Menachem’s suit satisfies each element and he therefore has

standing to sue.

III.

The district court concluded that a U.S. passport inscribed

“Jerusalem, Israel” might signify to others that the United States

USCA Case #04-5395 Document #950256 Filed: 02/17/2006 Page 9 of 11
10

recognized Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem. Yet “[p]olitical

recognition is exclusively a function of the Executive.” Banco

Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, 376 U.S. 398, 410 (1964); see

also Williams v. Suffolk Ins. Co., 38 U.S. (13 Pet.) 415, 420

(1839). For this reason the district court found that the case

presented a political question – that is, a claim of unlawfulness

that was nonjusticiable. See Vieth v. Jubelirer, 541 U.S. 267,

277 (2004) (plurality opinion); Schneider v. Kissinger, 412 F.3d

190, 193-94 (D.C. Cir. 2005). The case, however, no longer

involves the claim the district court considered. See supra note

1. Both sides agree that the question now is whether § 214(d)

entitles Menachem to have just “Israel” listed as his place of

birth on his passport and on his Consular Birth Report.

Whether this, too, presents a political question depends on

the meaning of § 214(d) – is it mandatory or, as the government

argues, merely advisory? And it may depend also on what the

effect would be of listing “Israel” on the passports of citizens

born in Jerusalem. Among other things, Menachem contends

that there “are tens of thousands of American citizens today

whose passports identify them as born in ‘Israel,’” Br. for

Appellant 20; that “no one will be able to distinguish” those

born in Jerusalem “from American citizens born in Tel Aviv or

Haifa” if their passports list “Israel” as their birthplace, id.; that

“there is little foreign-policy impact in how American citizens

are described in their passports,” id. at 21; and that “[f]oreign

sovereigns rely only on the ‘identity and nationality’ attestation

of the Secretary of State, not on the passport’s other information

such as the passport-holder’s date or place of birth,” id. at 22.

Menachem also cites evidence that “the United States Embassy

in Tel Aviv issues death certificates that describe Shaarei Zedek

Hospital in Jerusalem – the same hospital where the plaintiff

was born – as located in ‘JERUSALEM, ISRAEL.’” Id. at 26.

As to the last point, the government denies that there is any such

policy with respect to death certificates. Br. for Appellee 27 n.3.

USCA Case #04-5395 Document #950256 Filed: 02/17/2006 Page 10 of 11
11

6

 Some of the government’s nonjusticiability arguments

are based on separation-of-powers principles. Because “[t]he

nonjusticiability of a political question is primarily a function of

the separation of powers,” Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 210

(1962), these arguments overlap and, in light of our disposition,

we decline to reach them.

And the government also takes issue with Menachem’s other

factual assertions.6

In light of all this, we believe the proper course is to remand

the case to the district court so that both sides may develop a

more complete record relating to these and other subjects of

dispute.

So ordered.

USCA Case #04-5395 Document #950256 Filed: 02/17/2006 Page 11 of 11