Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-casd-3_12-cv-02309/USCOURTS-casd-3_12-cv-02309-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 465
Nature of Suit: Other Immigration Actions
Cause of Action: Immigration Petition

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

MARTHA TORRES and JORGE

ALBERTO ALMARAZ TREJO,

Plaintiffs,

CASE NO. 12-CV-2309-LAB (JMA)

ORDER DISMISSING CASE FOR

LACK OF SUBJECT MATTER

vs. JURISDICTION

JOHN KERRY, Secretary of State,

Defendant.

Plaintiffs are husband and wife. Martha lives in the United States, and Jorge lives in

Mexico. Jorge applied for a visa to move to the United States and made it as far as an

interview with a consular officer in Ciudad Juarez. His application was denied, however,

because a 1974 conviction in the United States for drug trafficking gave the officer a reason

to believe Jorge “is or has been an illicit trafficker in any controlled substance.” 8 U.S.C.

§ 1182(a)(2)(C)(i). 

Martha and Jorge challenge that denial on the ground that Jorge’s conviction was set

aside in 1979 under the Federal Youth Corrections Act, which they take to mean it cannot

be used against him in any way, including in the immigration context. And they have some

authority on their side. See, e.g., Matter of Zingis, 14 I. & N. Dec. 621, 625 (BIA 1974)

(“Under the provisions of the Federal Youth Corrections Act, the conviction, when it is set

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aside, is totally set aside. It may not be used in any way. It is a greater remedy than a

pardon.”).

The biggest problem for Martha and Jorge is jurisdictional: the doctrine of consular

nonreviewability insulates the decisions of consular officers from review. And the doctrine

is well-established:

The doctrine of nonreviewability of a consul’s decision to grant

or deny a visa stems from the Supreme Court’s confirming that

the legislative power of Congress over the admission of aliens

is virtually complete . . . . [I]t has consistently been held that the

consular official’s decision to issue or withhold a visa is not

subject either to administrative or judicial review. . . . Exercising

jurisdiction over this case would, therefore, violate the longrecognized judicial nonreviewability of a consul’s decision to

grant or deny a visa.

Li Hing of Hong Kong, Inc. v. Levin, 800 F.2d 970, 970–71 (9th Cir. 1986). Martha and Jorge

try to get around this by arguing that the Court can review a decision when, as here, the

claim is that it’s based on legal error. That’s not really their argument, though, and if it were

it would be a miss. See Loza-Bedoya v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 410 F.2d

343, 347 (9th Cir. 1969) (“Though erroneous this Court is without jurisdiction to order an

American consular official to issue a visa to any alien whether excludable or not.”); Chun v.

Powell, 223 F.Supp.2d 204, 206 (D.D.C. 2002) (holding that consular nonreviewability

applies “where the decision is alleged to have been based on a factual or legal error”).

What is Martha and Jorge’s argument, then? It is that the consular official had no

facially legitimate or bona fide reason to deny Jorge’s visa application. Some background

law is necessary here. There are some exceptions to consular nonreviewability, one of

which arises “when the government has denied a visa if the government did not act ‘on the

basis of a facially legitimate and bona fide reason.’” Patel v. Reno, 134 F.3d 929, 932 n.1

(9th Cir. 1997) (quoting Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753 (1972)). The Ninth Circuit

subsequently made clear that this exception is only triggered “where the denial of a visa

implicates the constitutional rights of American citizens.” Bustamante v. Mukasey, 531 F.3d

1059, 1060 (9th Cir. 2008). For example, in Mandel the right at issue that triggered judicial

review was the First Amendment right of American university professors to “receive

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information and ideas” from a Belgian advocate of world communism who they’d invited to

speak on various campuses. Kleindienst, 408 U.S. at 762. In such a scenario, there may

be a “highly constrained” or “limited” judicial inquiry, but “[a]s long as the reason given is

facially legitimate and bona fide the decision will not be disturbed.” Id. at 1060–62.

A preliminary question, then, is whether the denial of Jorge’s visa implicates Martha’s

constitutional rights. Under Bustamante, which is roughly identical to this case, it seems that

it does: “Freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is, of course, one

of the liberties protected by the due process clause.” Bustamante, 531 F.3d at 1062. But

Defendant urges the Court not to follow Bustamante because it appears to conflict with

earlier Ninth Circuit caselaw, didn’t address that earlier caselaw, and wasn’t itself an en banc

decision with the authority to overrule that caselaw. See Morales-Izquierdo v. Dep’t of

Homeland Sec., 600 F.3d 1076, 1091 (9th Cir. 2010) (“In short, lawfully denying Morales

adjustment of status does not violate any of his or his family’s substantive rights protected

by the Due Process Clause.”). 

On top of that, the Court notes that other district courts have expressly declined to

follow Bustamante because it is contrary to the law of their circuits. See, e.g., Ruiz-Herrera

v. Holder, 2013 WL 1136849 at *4 (N.D. Ga. Mar. 15, 2013) (“But numerous courts have

held that neither deportation nor denial of a spouse’s immigrant visa infringes upon that

freedom.”); Jathoul v. Clinton, 880 F.Supp.2d 168, 171–72 (D.D.C. 2012) (“While it may well

be true that exclusion of her husband imposes burdens on their married life, the Court

cannot find any constitutional violation.”); Gogilashvili v. Holder, 2012 WL 2394820 at *5

(E.D.N.Y. June 25, 2012) (“No constitutional right of a citizen spouse is violated by

deportation or denial of a visa application of his or her alien spouse.”). See also Bangura

v. Hansen, 434 F.3d 487, 496 (6th Cir. 2006) (“A denial of an immediate relative visa does

not infringe upon their right to marry.”). 

There is a nuance to Bustamante, however, that Defendant misses in urging the Court

to disregard it—and that at least one district court in the Ninth Circuit has deftly highlighted. 

See Boyal v. Napolitano, 2011 WL 864618 at *4 (E.D. Cal. Mar. 10, 2011). The plaintiffs in

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Bustamante—a Mexican husband whose application for a permanent resident visa was

denied, and his American wife—alleged a procedural due process violation, in essence by

claiming the visa denial was in bad faith. The husband’s visa was denied, they claimed,

because he refused to become an informant for the Drug Enforcement Agency. 

Bustamante, 531 F.3d at 1061. Moreover, a consular officer said he had reason to believe

the husband was a drug trafficker under § 1182(a)(2)(C)(I) but refused to share the

information upon which this belief was based. Id. at 1060. It is in this context—the assertion

of a procedural due process right—that the Ninth Circuit found in Bustamante that the limited

inquiry authorized by Mandel was appropriate: “Presented with a procedural due process

claim by a U.S. citizen, we therefore consider the Consulate’s explanation for the denial of

Jose’s visa application pursuant to the limited inquiry authorized by Mandel.” Id. at 1062.

The many cases cited by Defendant to urge this Court to veer off course from Bustamante

appear to address, instead, the lack of a substantive due process interest that a resident

spouse has in the visa application of an alien spouse. 

The point here is simply that the Defendant doesn’t need to argue that Bustamante

was wrongly decided or inconsistent with Ninth Circuit precedent. He can argue instead that

it is distinguishable from this case (and from precedent) because it implicated a procedural

rather than a substantive due process interest. This is how Judge England handled

Bustamante in Boyal. Boyal, 2011 WL 864618 at *4 (“In . . . Bustamante . . . the

plaintiffs . . . did not claim a substantive due process protection for their right to reside

together as spouses, but merely for constitutionally adequate procedures before the

government denies that right.”). Judge England reasoned, in other words, that constitutional

rights are only implicated in this context, and review under Mandel triggered, when the claim

is that the denial of visa was procedurally defective. If, instead, a plaintiff simply objects to

the conclusion the consular office reached, the claim is substantive and not constitutionally

cognizable—and Mandel review is not triggered. 

So what kind of claim are Martha and Jorge advancing, a procedural or substantive

one? The Court sees it as substantive. The consular officer, in their eyes, made an

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erroneous decision that deprived them of the ability to live together. The interest they assert

isn’t a procedural one, but rather Martha’s “personal choice to want to live with her husband

in the United States,” which they claim “is protected by the Due Process Clause and gives

this Court jurisdiction.” (Doc. No. 6 at 7.) That is a substantive claim, and a mistaken one

at that. Morales-Izquierdo, 600 F.3d at 1091. Considering that no constitutional rights are

implicated here, the Court finds it has no jurisdiction to review the consular officer’s denial

of Jorge’s visa application. See Boyal, 2011 WL 864618 at *5. This means that Martha and

Jorge aren’t even entitled to the Mandel inquiry that asks whether the officer’s decision was

based upon a facially legitimate or bona fide reason. The Defendant’s motion to dismiss for

lack of jurisdiction is therefore GRANTED.

Even assuming the Court has jurisdiction here, it would find that the consular officer’s

decision was facially legitimate and bona fide. The reason given for the decision—the belief

that Jorge was a drug trafficker—is indisputably a statutory basis for inadmissibility, and

therefore “plainly a facially legitimate reason.” Bustamante, 531 F.3d at 1062; 8 U.S.C.

§ 1182(a)(2)(C)(i). And in arguing that the consular officer’s decision reliance on Jorge’s

1974 conviction was legally erroneous, Martha and Jorge are as much as conceding that that

was the true basis of his decision, rather than some other, unspoken motive. There is no

allegation here that the consular officer acted in bad faith such that his given reason for the

decision was not his true, bona fide reason. Bustamante, 531 F.3d at 1062. Finally, the only

circuit to recently address head-on the question whether a conviction expunged by the

Federal Youth Corrections Act can still be the basis for denying an alien admission has held

that it can:

Because expunction does not entitle its recipient to the

concealment of a conviction, neither does it conceal the facts

underlying a conviction. Expunction means that the conviction

itself will not stand as an impediment to a youthful offender in

the near future. We conclude that expunction does not entitle

petitioner to secret the fact of his conviction, or the facts

underlying that conviction, from immigration officials.

Castano v. I.N.S., 956 F.2d 236, 239 (11th Cir. 1992). The Ninth Circuit has cited Castano

in finding that the facts underlying a conviction expunged under the Federal Youth

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Corrections Act are relevant to a “good moral character” determination for naturalization

purposes. United States v. Hovsepian, 359 F.3d 1144, 1159 (9th Cir. 2004). These are just

some additional reasons, but by no means necessary ones, to find that Martha and Jorge’s

complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. This case is DISMISSED

WITH PREJUDICE.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

DATED: April 3, 2013

HONORABLE LARRY ALAN BURNS

United States District Judge

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