Opinion ID: 2605
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Declaratory relief (General Prayer for Relief)

Text: Arar's prayer for relief includes a request that this Court enter a judgment declaring that the actions defendants took with respect to him are illegal and violate [his] constitutional, civil, and international human rights. Compl. at 24. Following the Supreme Court's instructions, we begin our analysis by considering whether this action for a declaratory judgment is the sort of Article III case or controversy to which federal courts are limited. Calderon v. Ashmus, 523 U.S. 740, 745, 118 S.Ct. 1694, 140 L.Ed.2d 970 (1998) (internal quotation marks omitted). As the Supreme Court has frequently noted, the core component of standing is an essential and unchanging part of the case-or-controversy requirement of Article III, Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992); and the irreducible constitutional minimum of standing contains three elements, id.: First, the plaintiff must have suffered an injury in fact-an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized, [affecting the plaintiff in a personal and individual way] and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical. Second, there must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of-the injury has to be fairly ... trace[able] to the challenged action of the defendant, and not ... th[e] result [of] the independent action of some third party not before the court. Third, it must be likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision. Id. at 560-61, 112 S.Ct. 2130 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted, first alteration supplied); see also Baur v. Veneman, 352 F.3d 625, 631-32 (2d Cir.2003). The party invoking federal jurisdiction bears the burden of establishing these elements. Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561, 112 S.Ct. 2130. The conduct of which Arar complains is his alleged detention, by defendants, for the purpose of removing him to Syria for arbitrary detention and interrogation under torture. Plaintiff's Br. 55. The personal injury he alleges is a bar to reentering the United States, which harms him because he has worked for sustained periods for U.S. companies in the past, and ... would like to return to the U.S. for that purpose, as well as to visit relatives and friends. Plaintiff's Br. 54. In examining Arar's claim, we conclude that he fails to meet both the traceability and redressability prongs of the test for constitutional standing set forth by the Supreme Court. The re-entry bar from which Arar seeks relief arises as an automatic incident of (1) the finding that Arar was inadmissible to the United States for reasons of national security, see 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(3)(B); and (2) the entry of an order of removal pursuant to that finding, see 8 U.S.C. § 1225(c). It bears no relationship with the country of removal that defendants selected for Arar. Any injury associated with the re-entry bar is, therefore, not fairly traceable to the conduct of which Arar complains-namely, defendants' removal of Arar  to Syria for arbitrary detention and interrogation under torture. Plaintiff's Br. 55 (emphasis added). The problem with redressability arises because, as Arar's submissions to both this Court and the District Court unequivocally establish, Arar does not directly challenge his removal order or defendants' underlying decision to classify him as inadmissible to the United States. See 414 F.Supp.2d at 259 (discussing Arar's brief in opposition to defendants' motion to dismiss). Arar contends that if [he] prevails on his constitutional claims, the removal order will be expunged as null and void, thereby lifting the current barrier to [his] re-entry into the U.S. Plaintiff's Br. 53. He does not, however, articulate the theory on which he bases this argument or, for that matter, set forth any authority in support of his position. We conclude that Arar's claimed injurynamely, the bar to his re-entry to the United States pursuant to a removal order, the lawfulness of which he does not challengeis not likely to be redressed (indeed, cannot be redressed) by the declaratory judgment he seeks. That is so because a declaration that defendants acted illegally by removing Arar to a particular country for a particular purpose would not change the underlying, uncontested fact that Arar cannot be admitted to the United States: Even if Arar had been removed to Canada rather than Syria, he would still be inadmissible to the United States by virtue of the order of removal entered against him. Because Arar cannot meet the test for constitutional standing set forth by the Supreme Court, we lack subject matter jurisdiction over his request for a judgment declaring that defendants violated his rights by removing him to Syria for the purpose of arbitrary detention and interrogation under torture.