[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 20-12811

Non-Argument Calendar

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 6:13-cv-01027-PGB-LRH

ANESH GUPTA, 

 Plaintiff-Appellant,

 versus

U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL, 

SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, 

DIRECTOR, U.S. CITIZENSHIP & IMMIGRATION SERVICES 

(USCIS), 

U.S. CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES (USCIS),

FIELD OFFICE DIRECTOR, ORLANDO FIELD OFFICE, USCIS, 

 Defendants-Appellees.

________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Florida

________________________

(July 16, 2021)

USCA11 Case: 20-12811 Date Filed: 07/16/2021 Page: 1 of 11
2

Before: WILSON, ROSENBAUM, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Anesh Gupta, a pro se litigant, is a citizen of India who was previously granted 

a ten-year multiple entry visa. Before the expiration of that visa, he alleged that he 

had married a U.S. citizen. She had submitted a visa petition on Gupta’s behalf, after 

which Gupta applied to adjust his immigration status. The U.S. Citizenship and 

Immigration Service denied both the visa petition and Gupta’s application on the 

basis of marriage fraud. Upon denial of Gupta’s petition, the Department of 

Homeland Security initiated removal proceedings against him. Gupta then filed suit 

in the district court and alleged that the government violated 8 C.F.R. § 103.2(b)(1), 

8 C.F.R. § 287.8(c)(2)(vii), the APA, his marital privacy rights, and his right to due 

process under the Fifth Amendment in an attempt to change his immigration status. 

The district court granted summary judgment for the government and denied Gupta’s 

motion for relief from judgment, Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(d)(3), and his accompanying 

motions for an evidentiary hearing and for a stay under the Administrative Procedure 

Act, 5 U.S.C. § 702. 

On appeal, Gupta argues that the district court lacked jurisdiction to enter 

judgment against him because he was in the midst of removal proceedings and 

because his putative wife was not joined to the district court proceedings. Gupta also 

argues that he had proven that the government committed fraud on the court by 

USCA11 Case: 20-12811 Date Filed: 07/16/2021 Page: 2 of 11
3

omitting material from the certified administrative record, that the court should have

held an evidentiary hearing to discover the full extent of the alleged fraud, and that 

the court should have stayed its judgment. His arguments are meritless. We agree 

with the district court and affirm.

I. 

We presume familiarity with the factual and procedural history and describe 

it below only to the extent necessary to address the issues raised in this appeal.

This appeal is the latest entry in Gupta’s lengthy immigration dispute. The 

heart of the matter is that the government denied Gupta’s application for adjustment 

of status and his putative wife’s visa petition on his behalf. Because Gupta 

challenges the federal courts’ jurisdiction over this matter, we briefly list the relevant 

dates in the parallel administrative and judicial proceedings as follows. In 2009, the 

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service denied the Form I-130 visa petition filed 

on Gupta’s behalf. The basis for the government’s denial was marriage fraud and 

that Gupta’s putative wife had not responded to their questions about their marriage 

and so had abandoned her visa petition. The government then initiated removal 

proceedings against Gupta. During those proceedings, Gupta and his putative wife 

were interviewed, and the government reconsidered its denial of the visa petition. 

After reconsidering the denial, the government again determined that their marriage 

was not bona fide. On February 7, 2013, the government informed Gupta that it had 

USCA11 Case: 20-12811 Date Filed: 07/16/2021 Page: 3 of 11
4

denied the visa petition and so his adjustment application was denied as well. On 

July 5, 2013, Gupta initiated proceedings in district court, and the court entered 

judgment against Gupta in 2015. Gupta filed the present Rule 60(d)(3) in 2020.

During the 2011 interview, Gupta stated that the pair were married only a few 

days after first meeting, he never had a wedding ring, and he could not recall the last 

time that they had kissed. The putative wife was not wearing a wedding ring during 

the interview, and she stated that she could not recall the last time that she and Gupta 

had had sex, that the pair had separate bank accounts, and that Gupta did not have a 

key to her house. The evidence also showed that the putative wife had never told her 

son that she was married, had never met any of Gupta’s friends, did not provide 

many of the supporting documents that the government had requested, did not post 

bond when Gupta was in custody, and had not kissed Gupta since 2003.

Gupta alleges that the real reason his application was denied is because the 

United States and the Walt Disney World Company are conspiring to retaliate 

against him for accusing Disney of violating immigration laws. We have previously 

determined that Gupta “is a serial litigant.” Gupta v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 806 F. App’x

810, 812 (11th Cir. 2020); see also Gupta v. U.S. Att’y Gen., 2017 WL 6075494, at 

*1 n.1 (M.D. Fla. Nov. 21, 2018) (noting that Gupta has filed twenty-one lawsuits 

in the Orlando Division of the Middle District of Florida since 2005 and is 

“dangerously close to being considered a vexatious litigant.”).

USCA11 Case: 20-12811 Date Filed: 07/16/2021 Page: 4 of 11
5

The subject of this appeal is Gupta’s complaint against various agencies and 

officials of the United States, Orlando, and Chicago. The government filed a motion 

to dismiss, accompanied by various portions of the administrative record. The court

ordered the government to submit the complete administrative record and certify that 

it was complete. The government did so. But Gupta moved to hold the government 

in contempt for omitting page six of a seven-page letter about his Disney allegations 

that he sent to President Obama. That page was just Gupta’s signature, personal 

information, and a list of people to whom he copied the letter. It was later determined 

that one page of Gupta’s Form I-485 Processing Worksheet was also missing. That 

page refers to what the district court described as Gupta’s potentially disqualifying 

criminal history.

The district court found that the administrative record was complete and that,

although the page from the Obama letter and the page about Gupta’s criminal history 

were inadvertently omitted, the government later supplemented the record provided 

to the court. The court also found that the government denied relief because of 

marriage fraud and because the putative wife had abandoned her petition—not 

because of the Disney allegations or Gupta’s criminal history. The court granted 

summary judgment in the government’s favor. About five years later, Gupta filed a 

Rule 60(d)(3) motion for relief from judgment and accompanying motions for an 

USCA11 Case: 20-12811 Date Filed: 07/16/2021 Page: 5 of 11
6

evidentiary hearing and a stay. The court denied those motions. This appeal 

followed.

II. DISCUSSION

Gupta argues that the district court erred in determining that he had not 

demonstrated fraud on the court by clear and convincing evidence, and that even if 

he had, he had not shown that the fact that pages were missing from the 

administrative record adversely affected the challenged outcome: summary 

judgment in favor of the government’s decision to deny Gupta’s adjustment of status 

application and accompanying visa petition. Gupta also argues that the district court 

lacked jurisdiction to affirm the administrative decisions on the I-130 petition and I485 application, even though he concedes that it had jurisdiction to determine his

adjustment of status. We conclude that the court did have jurisdiction and did not 

abuse its discretion in denying Gupta’s Rule 60(d)(3) motion and motions for an 

evidentiary hearing and stay.

A. Jurisdiction

Gupta argues that the district court lacked jurisdiction to review the 

government’s decision to deny the Form I-485 application because he was in 

removal proceedings and the Form I-130 because his putative wife had filed that 

document and so was an indispensable party who was not joined to the proceedings. 

We review for subject matter jurisdiction de novo. Univ. of S. Ala. v. Am. Tobacco 

USCA11 Case: 20-12811 Date Filed: 07/16/2021 Page: 6 of 11
7

Co., 168 F.3d 405, 408 (11th Cir. 1999). We review a decision regarding the joinder 

of indispensable parties for abuse of discretion. Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc. v. 

Dolgencorp, LLC, 746 F.3d 1008, 1039 (11th Cir. 2014).

The district courts have jurisdiction to review “final agency action[s].” 5 

U.S.C. §§ 702, 704. To be a final reviewable decision, “[f]irst, the action must mark 

the consummation of the agency’s decisionmaking process—it must not be of a 

merely tentative or interlocutory nature. And second, the action must be one by 

which rights or obligations have been determined, or from which legal consequences 

will flow.” Canal A Media Holding, LLC v. U.S. Citizenship & Immigr. Servs., 964 

F.3d 1250, 1255 (11th Cir. 2020) (quoting U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs v. Hawkes 

Co., 578 U.S. ----, 136 S.Ct. 1807, 1813 (2016)).

A U.S. citizen can petition for a visa for her spouse by submitting Form I-130

to the Citizenship and Immigration Service. 8 C.F.R. § 204.2(a). The spouse then 

files a Form I-485 to adjust his immigration status. 8 C.F.R. § 245.2. If the 

government denies the spouse’s application for adjustment of status, the spouse may 

renew his application during removal proceedings. 8 C.F.R. § 245.2(a)(5)(ii) (“[T]he 

applicant, if not an arriving alien, retains the right to renew his or her application in 

proceedings under” removal proceedings.). But if the government instead denies the 

visa petition, then the government has issued a final decision because the 

immigration judge has no authority to alter it. Canal A Media Holding, LLC v. U.S. 

USCA11 Case: 20-12811 Date Filed: 07/16/2021 Page: 7 of 11
8

Citizenship & Immigr. Servs., 964 F.3d 1250, 1255–56 (11th Cir. 2020) (quoting In 

re Aurelio, 19 I. & N. Dec. 458, 460 (BIA 1987) (“[I]t is well established that 

immigration judges have no jurisdiction to decide visa petitions . . . .”)).

A party is “indispensable” and must be joined if, “in that person’s absence, 

the court cannot accord complete relief among existing parties” or “that person 

claims an interest relating to the subject of the action and is so situated that disposing 

of the action in the person’s absence” may harm their ability to protect the interest. 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 19(a)(1).

Here, the district court clearly had subject matter jurisdiction. Gupta brought

a claim under the Administrative Procedure Act, which is a federal statute. See 28 

U.S.C. § 1331 (“The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions 

arising under the . . . laws . . . of the United States.”). Although Gupta was in the 

middle of removal proceedings—and so had not yet exhausted his administrative 

remedies—while his complaint was pending, he later received a final reviewable 

decision when the immigration judge ordered the government to reconsider its denial

of the visa petition and adjustment application. At that point, the agency issued a 

new, final decision that the court could review. Nor was Gupta’s putative wife an 

indispensable party. She filed a Form I-130 petition for Gupta’s benefit and the 

district court could grant him complete relief without her presence. And 

significantly, Gupta himself reported to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration 

USCA11 Case: 20-12811 Date Filed: 07/16/2021 Page: 8 of 11
9

Service that his putative wife no longer wished to pursue the I-130 petition, so he 

wanted to proceed without her. Not only that, but on each of the three occasions 

when Citizenship and Immigration advised Gupta’s putative wife that it believed the 

marriage to be fraudulent and gave the putative wife time to respond in writing to 

demonstrate that the marriage was bona fide, the putative wife never responded. We

conclude that the district court had subject matter jurisdiction over this action and 

did not abuse its discretion in refusing to join the putative spouse.

B. Motion for Relief from Judgment

Gupta argues that the district court erred in denying his Rule 60(d)(3) motion 

for relief from judgment after it determined that he had not demonstrated fraud on 

the court. We review a district court’s denial of a Rule 60(d)(3) motion for abuse of 

discretion. See Cox Nuclear Pharm., Inc. v. CTI, Inc., 478 F.3d 1303, 1314 (11th 

Cir. 2007). We also review a district court’s decision whether to hold an evidentiary 

hearing for abuse of discretion. Cliff v. Payco Gen. Am. Credits, Inc., 363 F.3d 1113, 

1121 (11th Cir. 2004). “A district court abuses its discretion if it applies an incorrect 

legal standard, applies the law in an unreasonable or incorrect manner, follows 

improper procedures in making a determination, or makes findings of fact that are 

clearly erroneous.” Giovanno v. Fabec, 804 F.3d 1361, 1365 (11th Cir. 2015) 

(quoting Surtain v. Hamlin Terrace Found., 789 F.3d 1239, 1244 (11th Cir. 2015)). 

A district court does not abuse its discretion in denying a request for an evidentiary 

USCA11 Case: 20-12811 Date Filed: 07/16/2021 Page: 9 of 11
10

hearing for a Rule 60(b) motion when the hearing would not aid the court’s analysis.

Cano v. Baker, 435 F.3d 1337, 1342-43 (11th Cir. 2006).

Under Rule 60(d)(3), a court may set aside a judgment for fraud on the court. 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(d)(3). A movant seeking relief under that rule must establish that

“an adverse party has obtained the verdict through fraud” by clear and convincing 

evidence. Cox Nuclear, 478 F.3d at 1314 (quoting Frederick v. Kirby Tankships, 

Inc., 205 F.3d 1277, 1287 (11th Cir. 2000)). The movant must also show that the 

opposing party’s fraud prevented him from fully presenting his case. Id. Only 

egregious misconduct—an unconscionable scheme to influence the court’s decision, 

for example—will constitute a fraud on the court. Rozier v. Ford Motor Co., 573 

F.2d 1332, 1338 (5th Cir. 1978). Mere perjury or nondisclosure of relevant facts 

does not generally constitute fraud on the court because it can be exposed by the 

normal adversary process. See Travelers Indem. Co. v. Gore, 761 F.2d 1549, 1551–

52 (11th Cir. 1985)) (“Fraud on the court is therefore limited to the more egregious 

forms of subversion of the legal process,” unlike perjury or fabricated evidence, i.e., 

“those we cannot necessarily expect to be exposed to by the normal adversary 

process.”).

Here, Gupta failed to show by clear and convincing evidence that the 

government defrauded the district court. The omission of two pages from the 

administrative record did not impact the district court’s decision to grant summary 

USCA11 Case: 20-12811 Date Filed: 07/16/2021 Page: 10 of 11
11

judgment in favor of the government. Accordingly, the district court did not abuse 

its discretion in denying Gupta’s Rule 60(d)(3) motion and accompanying motions 

for an evidentiary hearing and a stay. Gupta’s allegation that the government omitted 

two pages from the administrative record—an allegation unrelated to whether his 

marriage was fraudulent—amounts to no more than nondisclosure of facts. As a 

matter of law, such allegations cannot be fraud on the court. See Travelers Indem. 

Co., 761 F.2d at 1551–52; Rozier, 573 F.2d at 1338. Even if the facts had been 

relevant to his marriage, Gupta could have discovered the facts through the 

adversarial process.

Nor did the district court abuse its discretion in denying Gupta’s motions for 

an evidentiary hearing or for a stay. The court had already addressed the 

completeness of the administrative record on several occasions and the allegedly 

missing documents were unrelated to the order that was the subject of Gupta’s Rule 

60(d)(3) motion. And once the court denied the Rule 60(d)(3) motion, any request 

for a stay became moot.

AFFIRMED.

USCA11 Case: 20-12811 Date Filed: 07/16/2021 Page: 11 of 11