In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 15-2982 

SAMIRA HAZAMA and AHMED ABDEL HAFIZ GHNEIM, 

Plaintiffs-Appellants, 

v.

REX W. TILLERSON, Secretary of State, et al., 

Defendants-Appellees. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. 

No. 15 C 4002 — Milton I. Shadur, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED DECEMBER 2, 2016 — DECIDED MARCH 20, 2017 

____________________ 

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK and 

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges. 

WOOD, Chief Judge. In an effort to seek judicial review of a 

consular official’s unfavorable decision on a visa application, 

Samira Hazama and Ahmed Abdel Hafiz Ghneim filed a petition for a writ of mandamus in the district court for the 

Northern District of Illinois, where Hazama resides. The district court concluded that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction 
2 No. 15-2982 

over the petition, because it thought that review was precluded under the Supreme Court’s decisions in Kleindienst v. 

Mandel, 408 U.S. 753 (1972), and Kerry v. Din, 135 S. Ct. 2128 

(2015). The district court was correct that this case cannot go 

forward, but mistaken to think that the problem was jurisdictional. In Morfin v. Tillerson, No. 15-3633, decided today, we 

concluded that plaintiff loses on the merits. The same result is 

proper here, both for the reasons stated in Morfin and because 

the criteria for mandamus relief have not been met. See United 

States v. Vinyard, 529 F.3d 589, 591 (7th Cir. 2008) (mandamus 

proper only if the order would inflict irreparable harm, is not 

effectively reviewable at the end of the case, and so far exceeds the bounds of judicial discretion that it is usurpative, in 

violation of a clear and indisputable legal right, or patently 

erroneous).

Hazama is a U.S. citizen; she is married to Ghneim, who is 

a citizen of the Palestinian Authority and currently resides 

there. Hoping to obtain a permanent resident visa for 

Ghneim, Hazama filed an I-130 Petition for Alien Relative 

with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service of the Department of Homeland Security (USCIS). Her petition was approved by USCIS on August 25, 2011, but that alone did not 

assure Ghneim’s right to immigrate to the United States. First, 

he had to wait until a visa number became available, then 

(while still outside the country) he had to appear for an interview with a consular officer, and ultimately he had to file form 

I-485, the Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status. 

Ghneim never made it to the end of the line. He showed 

up for his interview at the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem on January 24, 2013. The consular officer denied the application for 
No. 15-2982 3

three reasons: the commission of a crime of moral turpitude, 

8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2)(A)(i)(I); previous removal from the 

United States, id. § 1182(a)(9)(A)(ii); and unlawful presence in 

the United States, id. § 1182(a)(9)(B)(i)(II). Ghneim tried to address these grounds, but his petition for a waiver of the “previously removed” and “unlawful presence” grounds was ultimately denied. In the meantime, on January 22, 2015, a consular officer again denied Ghneim’s application, this time for 

having personally engaged in terrorist activities. See 8 U.S.C. 

§ 1182(a)(3)(B)(i). 

Hazama and Ghneim filed the present Complaint for Writ 

of Mandamus on May 5, 2015. In it, they attack only the terrorism ground for denying the visa. The omission of the other 

three grounds is perplexing, because it would do little good 

to set aside one ground if there are three alternate grounds for 

upholding the agency’s decision. Their choice may reflect the 

assumption that the three omitted grounds may be waivable. 

We do not know, and in light of our disposition of the appeal, 

we need not inquire further. For present purposes we confine 

ourselves to the applicability of the terrorism ground to 

Ghneim. 

The Complaint also seeks declaratory and injunctive relief 

under the Administrative Procedure Act, based on the government’s alleged failure to adjudicate Ghneim’s application. 

Finally, it asserts that the refusal was not facially legitimate 

and bona fide. The government moved to dismiss, both for 

lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and for failure to state a 

claim. The district court held a hearing on the government’s 

motion on August 26, 2015, but despite her awareness that the 

court had scheduled this hearing—reflected in her effort on 

August 20 to seek a postponement—counsel for Hazama and 
4 No. 15-2982 

Ghneim did not attend. In the end, however, counsel’s inability to attend made little difference. The district court, noting 

that the petitioners had relied heavily on the Ninth Circuit’s 

decision in Din and that the Supreme Court had vacated that 

ruling, found that the consular official’s reliance on the terrorism provision satisfied all relevant legal standards. Hazama 

and Ghneim have appealed from that decision. 

The Supreme Court has consistently recognized that unadmitted, nonresident aliens have no free-standing constitutional right to enter the United States. See Mandel, 408 U.S. at 

762. Nothing in Din, which admittedly failed to produce an 

authoritative opinion of the Court, casts any doubt on that 

proposition. Congress has delegated broad power to the Executive Branch to decide who will have the privilege of entering. Id. at 770. In general, courts have no authority to secondguess the Executive’s decisions—rulings that are typically 

made by consular officers of the Department of State. See 

Samirah v. Holder, 627 F.3d 652, 662 (7th Cir. 2010). 

That said, the Court has never entirely slammed the door 

shut on review of consular decisions on visas. The language 

in Mandel suggests at least two possible exceptions to the general norm of nonreviewability: “We hold that when the Executive exercises [the power to admit] negatively on the basis of 

a facially legitimate and bona fide reason, the courts will neither 

look behind the exercise of that discretion, nor test it by balancing its justification against the First Amendment interests 

of those who seek personal communication with the applicant.” 408 U.S. at 770 (emphasis added). In addition, as the 

final allusion to the First Amendment implies, some courts 

have held that if a visa denial affects the constitutional rights 

of American citizens, then it may be reviewable. Cardenas v. 
No. 15-2982 5

United States, 826 F.3d 1164, 1169 (9th Cir. 2016); see also Din, 

135 S. Ct. at 2141–42 (dissenting opinion of Breyer, J., joined 

by Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., recognizing this 

right); Id. at 2139 (concurrence in judgment of Kennedy, J., 

joined by Alito, J., assuming arguendo that such a right exists). 

Like the concurring Justices in Din, we can assume for the 

sake of argument that Hazama has enough of an interest in 

the grant of a visa to her husband that this case can go forward. Yet that assumption does nothing to meet her greater 

challenge, which is to show that the consular decision was not 

facially legitimate and bona fide. The act that prompted the 

consular officer to find that Ghneim had engaged in “terrorism” was admittedly minor, when compared with the worst 

terrorist acts one can imagine. As a 13-year-old boy in Palestine, Ghneim threw rocks at Israeli soldiers; the latter were 

armed with automatic rifles. Citing several other cases that 

involved rock-throwing, Hazama urges us to find that his actions were so inconsequential that they cannot suffice as a facially legitimate and bona fide reason for the visa denial. On 

one point we agree with her: this was a discretionary call, and 

it would not have been outside the consular officer’s discretion to consider this as an act of juvenile rebellion rather than 

an act of terrorism. 

The Supreme Court has made it clear, however, that whatever residual authority the courts have to review these decisions cannot be triggered by every possible recharacterization 

of an act. Mandel, Din, and all of the earlier cases are premised 

on the non-reviewability of these decisions, and a recharacterization exception would open the door to plenary reviewability—most things, after all, are open to interpretation. The 
6 No. 15-2982 

same problems would arise if we were to accept the suggestion of amicus curiae and adopt a rule under which we would 

examine whether the officer “properly construed and applied” the relevant provisions of law. All we can do is to look 

at the face of the decision, see if the officer cited a proper 

ground under the statute, and ensure that no other applicable 

constitutional limitations are violated. Once that is done, if the 

undisputed record includes facts that would support that 

ground, our task is over. 

We found that additional support in Morfin, and we find it 

here as well. The consular officer in Jerusalem knew several 

things before making his decision: first, this particular act of 

rock-throwing took place in one of the least settled places in 

the world—a place where peace efforts have failed for 70 

years; second, rocks are not benign objects—to the contrary, 

they can be lethal, as the barbaric practice of stoning illustrates; third, Ghneim did not deny that he had thrown the 

rocks; and fourth, Ghneim had several other blots on his record. Nothing here suggests that his visa was denied for a constitutionally troublesome reason such as religious discrimination, and so we have no need to consider how such a case 

should be approached. In addition, there is nothing in this record to suggest that the consular officers involved were proceeding in bad faith. At oral argument, Hazama’s lawyer asserted that the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem regularly prolongs 

its consideration of visa applications and denies those coming 

from citizens of the Palestinian Authority, but we have not 

taken this allegation into account in resolving this appeal, because it was not presented to the district court and (probably 

for that reason) there is no support in this record for a finding 

of the alleged systematic bias. 
No. 15-2982 7

Finally, even if we were to find that Hazama was entitled 

to a reasoned explanation of the denial, she would still be out 

of luck. Ghneim, and so we assume Hazama, received a full 

explanation in a signed letter of a page and a half. The letter 

laid out all the grounds for refusal, explained why they applied, cited relevant precedent, and explained the agency review process. That was more than enough. 

Hazama has raised several other points, but they all represent an effort to dilute or eliminate the consular nonreviewability doctrine, or they are procedural points that lay within 

the district court’s discretion. The fact that she cannot succeed 

under ordinary standards of appellate review demonstrates 

that her petition for mandamus must also fail. We therefore 

AFFIRM the judgment of the district court, with instructions 

that the judgment be modified to reflect that it rejects an adjudication on the merits, not for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.