Court Opinion

ID: 9955260
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-27 21:01:02.593998+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:15:23.104073
License: Public Domain

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
                             FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

 SAAD BIN KHALID,

                        Plaintiff,

                        v.                         Case No. 21-cv-2307 (CRC)

 MERRICK GARLAND, et al.,

                        Defendants.

                                     MEMORANDUM OPINION

       The U.S. government maintains a watchlist of known or suspected terrorists called the

Terrorist Screening Database. Individuals on the watchlist are designated on one of three

sublists: (1) the Selectee List, (2) the Expanded Selectee List, or (3) the No Fly List. Those on

either of the “selectee” lists are subject to enhanced screening before flying. Those on the No

Fly List may not travel at all on U.S. commercial carriers or over U.S. airspace. Federal agencies

across the government have access to the lists.

       Plaintiff Saad Bin Khalid is on the No Fly List. In 2021, Khalid filed suit in this Court

challenging his inclusion on both the No Fly List and the broader watchlist. The Court dismissed

Khalid’s No Fly List claims for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because only a court of

appeals has the authority to review his status on that list. See Busic v. Transp. Sec. Admin., 62

F.4th 547, 549 (D.C. Cir. 2023); 49 U.S.C § 46110. The Court allowed two of his broader

watchlist-based claims to proceed, however. The government now moves to dismiss those

claims too.

       Khalid maintains that his inclusion on the watchlist has disrupted and delayed his travel

and held up a visa application he submitted on behalf of his wife in Pakistan. But those harms

also stem from being on the No Fly List, which the Court is powerless to change, and would
remain as long as he stays on that list. So, whatever the merits of Khalid’s residual watchlist

claims, no order in his favor would redress his alleged injuries. Khalid therefore lacks standing,

and the Court must grant the government’s motion and dismiss the case.

 I.    Background

       The Court fully recounted the applicable regulatory framework in its Opinion and Order

granting in part and denying in part the government’s first motion to dismiss. See Op. & Order,

ECF No. 32, at 2–5. The following discussion will therefore summarize the previous factual

background as well as subsequent developments in the case. As the Court is again resolving a

motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, it will consider the amended complaint

along with undisputed facts in the record. See id. at 2 n.1 (citing Coal. for Underground

Expansion v. Mineta, 333 F.3d 193, 198 (D.C. Cir. 2003)).

       Saad Bin Khalid is a U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent. Am. Compl. ¶ 2. In July 2019,

after he was denied boarding a plane from Karachi, Pakistan to the United States, Khalid filed a

complaint with the Department of Homeland Security’s Travelers Redress Inquiry Program

(“DHS TRIP”). Id. ¶¶ 81–94, 110. A No Fly List designation is one of three possible watchlist

designations, alongside the Selectee List and Expanded Selectee List. Id. ¶ 44. Only individuals

with a No Fly List designation are prohibited from traveling through U.S. airspace, but inclusion

on the watchlist in any category subjects the individual to additional screening procedures and

allows their status to be shared across government agencies. See id. ¶¶ 46–47. In April 2020,

Khalid received notification from DHS TRIP confirming that he was on the No Fly List. Id.

¶ 111. After DHS failed to respond to his request for further information, Khalid filed this suit in

August 2021. But before the government responded substantively to the suit, in June 2022,

Khalid’s No Fly List designation was affirmed by the Administrator of the Transportation

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Security Administration (“TSA”) in a Notice of Final Order and Decision. Id. ¶ 140. Khalid

then filed an amended complaint seeking removal from both lists, a declaratory judgment that his

inclusion is unlawful, an injunction against being relisted based on the same evidence supporting

his existing status, and a legal mechanism that affords him notice and a meaningful opportunity

to contest his continued inclusion on the lists. Id. at 39–40.

       The government moved to dismiss based on 49 U.S.C. § 46110. Section 46110(a)

provides that “a person disclosing a substantial interest in an order issued by . . . the

Administrator of the [TSA] . . . may apply for review of the order by filing a petition for review

in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit or in the court of

appeals of the United States for the circuit in which the person resides or has its principal place

of business.” Section 46110(c) then provides that “the court”—meaning the court of appeals

where the petition is filed—has “exclusive jurisdiction to affirm, amend, modify, or set aside any

part of the order.” The government contended then, as it does now, that this Court lacks

jurisdiction to grant Khalid his requested relief because it would require altering the TSA

Administrator’s 2022 No Fly List order, which only a circuit court may do. Op. & Order, ECF

No. 32, at 5. While that motion was pending, Khalid petitioned this Court for a preliminary

injunction allowing him to board a plane so that he could return to the United States after

traveling to Pakistan for the birth of his son. See Mot. Prelim. Inj., ECF No. 22, at 4–5. The

Court denied that motion, finding that it likely lacked jurisdiction to waive Khalid’s inclusion on

the No Fly List, even temporarily, and therefore success on the merits was improbable. Order,

ECF No. 30, at 1–2.

       In due course, the Court granted the government’s motion to dismiss in part and denied it

in part, confirming that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over Khalid’s No Fly List claims.

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Op. & Order, ECF No. 32, at 13–14. As to Khalid’s watchlist-only claims, the Court found that

both his claim based on a constitutional right to travel and a claim under the Religious Freedom

Restoration Act depended on a bar to travel that the watchlist alone did not impose, id. at 10, 13,

but left to further briefing whether the amended complaint adequately pleads a stigma-plus-based

due process claim and whether there was an adequate alternative remedy for Khalid to challenge

his watchlist status that would preclude review of his claim under the Administrative Procedure

Act, id. at 13–14. At Khalid’s request, the Court subsequently transferred the dismissed No Fly

List claims to the D.C. Circuit, where they currently remain pending. Op. & Order, ECF No. 39,

at 7; see also Khalid v. Transp. Sec. Admin., No. 23-1150 (D.C. Cir. appeal docketed June 6,

2023).

         The parties have since briefed the government’s renewed motion to dismiss Khalid’s

watchlist-only claims, to which the Court now turns.

  II.    Legal Standards

         The government moves to dismiss the amended complaint for lack of subject-matter

jurisdiction pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1). “[T]he defect of standing is a

defect of subject matter jurisdiction.” Haase v. Sessions, 835 F.2d 902, 906 (D.C. Cir. 1987).

To survive a motion to dismiss based on lack of standing, a plaintiff “must state a plausible claim

that [he has] suffered an injury in fact fairly traceable to the actions of the defendant that is likely

to be redressed by a favorable decision on the merits.” Food & Water Watch, Inc. v. Vilsack,

808 F.3d 905, 913 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (quoting Humane Soc’y of the United States v. Vilsack, 797

F.3d 4, 8 (D.C. Cir. 2015)). “A Court must accept all the non-movant’s factual allegations as

true when reviewing a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1), but such allegations will bear

closer scrutiny in resolving a 12(b)(1) motion than in resolving a [Rule] 12(b)(6) motion for

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failure to state a claim.” Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence United with the Million

Mom March v. Ashcroft, 339 F. Supp. 2d 68, 72–73 (D.D.C. 2004) (cleaned up). If the Court

“concludes that it lacks subject-matter jurisdiction, [it] must dismiss the complaint in its

entirety.” Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 514 (2006).

       The government also moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6).

Because the Court will dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction, it need not recite the 12(b)(6)

standards.

 III. Analysis

       “[S]tanding is an essential and unchanging part of the case-or-controversy requirement of

Article III.” Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). Its “irreducible constitutional

minimum” consists of “three elements: ‘(1) injury-in-fact, (2) causation, and (3) redressability.’”

Am. Freedom L. Ctr. v. Obama, 821 F.3d 44, 48 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at

560). “The plaintiff, as the party invoking federal jurisdiction, bears the burden of establishing

these elements.” Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330, 338 (2016). The government contends

that Khalid does not have standing to maintain his watchlist claims because the injuries he

complains of are constitutionally insufficient, are caused by his No Fly List designation rather

than his watchlist status, and are unlikely to be redressed by a favorable decision so long as he

remains on the No Fly List. Defs.’ 2d Mot. Dismiss at 10–14, 29–32. To the extent Khalid

challenges the procedures afforded to listees who are not on the No Fly List, the government

maintains that he lacks standing because the procedures do not apply to him. Id. at 1, 13.

Though Khalid has alleged a cognizable injury, because the Court cannot redress it, it will

dismiss the complaint, and the case, for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.

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       A. Injury

       Khalid identifies two injuries that he contends stem from his watchlist status: (1) he is

excessively burdened in traveling across U.S. borders and (2) his wife’s immigration visa has

been and will continue to be indefinitely delayed. Pl.’s Opp’n, ECF No. 45, at 2–4. To establish

injury in fact, a plaintiff must show that he or she suffered “an invasion of a legally protected

interest” that is “concrete and particularized” and “actual or imminent, not conjectural or

hypothetical.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560. For an injury to be “particularized,” it “must affect the

plaintiff in a personal and individual way.” Id. at 560 n.1. Because Khalid seeks injunctive

relief, he must plead future injury, meaning the threatened injury is “certainly impending,” or

there is a “‘substantial risk’ that the harm will occur.” Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, 573

U.S. 149, 158 (2014) (quoting Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 568 U.S. 398, 414 n.5 (2013)).

The Court addresses each claimed injury in turn.

               1. Excessive Screening & Travel Delays

       To support his claim of excessive screening and delayed travel, Khalid, in his opposition

brief, points to a declaration he submitted alongside his motion for a preliminary injunction

which described a March 2022 trip from Pakistan to the United States. Khalid recounts that the

government granted him “special clearance” on that occasion to return to the United States from

Pakistan despite his No Fly List designation. Decl. of Saad Bin Khalid (“Khalid Decl.”), ECF

No. 22-4, ¶¶ 5–6. However, upon his arrival in New York City, he was “detained and

interrogated for 5-6 hours” and the government “took [his] devices and searched them,

demanding [his] passwords in the process.” Id. Khalid contends that because he is an American

businessman with a wife and family in Pakistan, “it is certain that [he] will in the future interact

with the United States border” and experience the same harms, therefore giving rise to an

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imminent and concrete injury. Pl.’s Opp’n at 3. Though not for the reasons the government

offers, the Court disagrees.

       Responding to this asserted injury, the government first urges the Court to ignore

Khalid’s account of his March 2022 trip because it is absent from the amended complaint. Defs.’

Reply, ECF No. 47, at 4; see also Pl.’s Opp’n at 2–3 (citing declarations attached to Khalid’s

motion for a preliminary injunction). But “[i]n determining standing, [the Court] may consider

materials outside of the complaint.” Food & Water Watch, Inc. v. Vilsack, 808 F.3d 905, 913

(D.C. Cir. 2015) (citation omitted). And “a petitioner whose standing is not self[-]evident should

establish its standing by the submission of its arguments and any affidavits or other evidence

appurtenant thereto at the first appropriate point in the review proceeding.” Sierra Club v. EPA,

292 F.3d 895, 900 (D.C. Cir. 2002). As the D.C. Circuit has recognized, “[i]n some cases that

will be in response to a motion to dismiss for want of standing” where the petitioner may “cit[e]

any record evidence relevant to its claim of standing and, if necessary, append[] to its filing

additional affidavits or other evidence sufficient to support its claim.” Id. at 900–01.

Accordingly, the Court may consider Khalid’s citations to his previously submitted declarations

in addition to his amended complaint allegations.

       The government next suggests that additional airport screening and delay are

constitutionally insufficient to satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement. Defs.’ Reply at 6. The

government supports this contention by stating that “every circuit court across the country to

consider the issue has held that there is no liberty interest in delay-free travel.” Id. at 11–12

(collecting cases). But all the government’s cases involve merits determinations. Injury in fact

presents a different question. And the D.C. Circuit has held that a “history of traveling

[internationally] every two years to visit family, combined with [a] professed desire to continue

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that pattern[]” and “the reasonable inference [the plaintiffs would] remain on the Selectee List . .

. adequately allege[s] an imminent threat of future injury[.]” Jibril v. Mayorkas, 20 F.4th 804,

814–17 (D.C. Cir. 2021). Khalid alleges that he has a continuing need to travel internationally to

be with his family in Pakistan and for his professional responsibilities and he presents evidence

of harm in undertaking these travel obligations. Pl.’s Opp’n at 3; see also Am. Compl. ¶¶ 12, 65

(alleging that Khalid’s wife and daughter are Pakistani citizens and that he would like to visit

Pakistan); id. ¶¶ 101, 103 (alleging that Khalid’s employer tasks him with projects requiring

international travel); Khalid Decl. ¶ 6 (describing his detention at the airport for 5-6 hours). For

someone on the watchlist without a No-Fly designation, like the plaintiffs in Jibril, this may well

meet the requirements for imminent injury. But in addition to being on the watchlist, Khalid is

on the No Fly List, which defeats his claim to standing based on these asserted harms.

       Given Khalid’s absolute bar on traveling to and from U.S. airports, travel delays and

excessive airport screening are not sufficiently likely to recur due to his watchlist placement.

While Khalid’s declaration states that he has experienced this harm in the past despite his No-Fly

status due to a waiver from the government, “past wrongs do not in themselves amount to that

real and immediate threat of injury necessary to make out a case or controversy.” City of Los

Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 103 (1983). There is nothing in the record to support a plausible

finding that Khalid will once again receive a one-time waiver of his absolute domestic travel

prohibition. In fact, the government has since declined to facilitate his movement in and out of

the country, Khalid Decl. ¶ 8, and maintains that Khalid’s practice of traveling outside of the

United States despite being on the No Fly List “weigh[s] strongly against facilitating his

requested travel” in the future. Decl. of Michael Turner, ECF No. 25-1, ¶ 28. Accordingly,

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excessive travel screening is not an actual or imminent injury that supports Khalid’s claim of

standing.

               2. Visa Delays

       Next, Khalid claims that his wife’s immigration visa has been indefinitely delayed and

that his children’s future visas will be as well due to his placement on the watchlist. Am. Compl.

¶¶ 143–44; see also Pl.’s Opp’n at 4. When Khalid filed the amended complaint in June 2022,

his I-130 spousal visa petition, filed on behalf of his wife, had been pending for nearly three

years, but the couple had only recently received confirmation from the State Department’s

National Visa Center (“NVC”) that the case was “documentarily qualified.” Am. Compl. ¶ 143.

       The government first disputes that this injury is sufficiently personal to Khalid to support

standing. Defs.’ Reply at 6. While it is true that a U.S. citizen “has no constitutional right which

is violated by the deportation” of his spouse, Swartz v. Rogers, 254 F.2d 338, 339 (D.C. Cir.

1958), and that “standing is not dispensed in gross,” Town of Chester, N.Y. v. Laroe Estates,

Inc., 581 U.S. 433, 439 (2017), Khalid alleges that he submitted an application, of which his wife

is merely the beneficiary, and that his application has been unreasonably delayed due to

allegedly unlawful government action. Am. Compl. ¶ 143. He further alleges that he remains

separated from his wife and children due to the government’s delay in processing his application

on his wife’s behalf. Id. ¶¶ 7, 65, 97, 143. Courts routinely find that plaintiffs whose

immigration petitions have been unreasonably delayed have asserted a sufficient injury for

standing purposes. See, e.g., Pourabdollah v. Blinken, No. 23-cv-1603 (DLF), 2024 WL

474523, at *3 (D.D.C. Feb. 7, 2024) (finding that the plaintiffs “satisfactorily alleged that they

suffered a concrete injury” because “a delay in visa processing amounts to a ‘procedural right’”

and “separation from [] family” amounts to a “concrete harm”) (citing TransUnion LLC v.

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Ramirez, 141 S. Ct. 2190, 2204 (2021); Trump v. Hawaii, 138 S. Ct. 2392, 2416 (2018)

(recognizing “that a person’s interest in being united with his relatives is sufficiently concrete

and particularized to form the basis of an Article III injury in fact”)). This is true even where the

beneficiary differs from the plaintiff. See, e.g., Dehkordi v. Bitter, No. 22-cv-2470 (RJL), 2023

WL 5651845, at *2–3 (D.D.C. Aug. 31, 2023) (finding a “legally cognizable injury” where the

plaintiff alleged unreasonable delay in the government’s adjudication of a petition she submitted

on behalf of her mother); accord Varghese v. Blinken, No. 21-cv-2597 (CRC), 2022 WL

3016741, at *4 (D.D.C. July 29, 2022) (evaluating an I-130 petitioner’s “claim that the

government’s delay in processing his wife’s visa application violates the APA and Mandamus

Act” on the merits).

       The government next contends that any delay in Khalid’s wife’s visa process has been

reasonable and “had ended as of the filing of the amended complaint” because she had been

found “documentarily qualified,” and was awaiting an interview. Defs.’ Reply at 8 (quoting Am.

Compl. ¶ 7). But subject-matter jurisdiction does not depend on whether a delay is in fact

unreasonable or whether there has been interim progress on the petition. Cf. Dehkordi, 2023 WL

5651845, at *2–3 (finding that the plaintiff had standing despite the fact that the beneficiary of

the plaintiff’s petition was recently cleared to begin the application process with the NVC).

While it may or may not be true that final adjudication of the visa will be indefinitely delayed

because of Khalid’s watchlist status, the Court finds that the amended complaint pleads a

substantial risk of this possibility, particularly given that, on the government’s own admission,

the State Department is one of “[t]he largest end users” of the watchlist for the express purpose

of “visa and passport screening.” Decl. of Samuel P. Robinson, Ex. A, Overview of the U.S.

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Government’s Watchlisting Process and Procedures as of September 2020, at 5. Accordingly,

the alleged visa delay is a sufficient injury for standing purposes.

       B. Causation

       Stopping briefly at causation, the amended complaint must plausibly allege that Khalid’s

injury is “fairly traceable to the challenged conduct of the defendant[s].” Spokeo, 578 U.S. at

338. In making that determination, “it may be enough that the defendant’s conduct is one among

multiple causes” of the asserted harm. Orangeburg, S.C. v. Fed. Energy Regul. Comm’n, 862

F.3d 1071, 1080 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (citation omitted). The problem here, however, is that it may

be impossible to disentangle the effect that Khalid’s inclusion on the watchlist has had on his

spousal visa application from that of his designation on the No Fly List in particular. And this

difficulty identifying the precise cause of Khalid’s alleged injury points to the more fundamental

standing problem here: redressability.

       C. Redressability

        “Redressability examines whether the relief sought, assuming that the court chooses to

grant it, will likely alleviate the particularized injury alleged by the plaintiff.” Fla. Audubon

Soc’y v. Bentsen, 94 F.3d 658, 663–64 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (en banc). Here, Khalid seeks removal

from the watchlist. But the Court cannot remove Khalid from the watchlist without modifying

an order of the TSA Administrator—an action which it lacks jurisdiction to take. As Khalid

acknowledges, the “No Fly List” is an “annotation” on the watchlist, Am. Compl. ¶ 43, meaning

it does not exist independently and the Court cannot order removal from the watchlist without

also effectively ordering removal from the No Fly List. Moreover, without removal from the No

Fly List, Khalid’s asserted injury cannot be redressed. And “[b]ecause redressability is an

‘irreducible’ component of standing, no federal court has jurisdiction to enter a judgment unless

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it provides a remedy that can redress the plaintiff’s injury.” Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, 592

U.S. 279, 141 S. Ct. 792, 801 (2021) (quoting Spokeo, 578 U.S. at 338). Therefore, Khalid lacks

standing, and the Court must dismiss the case.

       Khalid’s resistance to this conclusion is unavailing. He first contends that the Court can

prohibit the Terrorist Screening Center (“TSC”), which maintains the list, “from disseminating

watchlist status to other agencies or private individuals, except TSA and airlines as necessary to

enforce the No Fly annotation.” Pl.’s Opp’n at 7. But the Court cannot order this generally

applicable relief on Khalid’s as-applied challenge. And though an order preventing TSC from

disseminating Khalid’s watchlist status to the State Department may appear to redress his

particular injury, the alleged delay in visa processing springs just as forcefully, if not more, from

his unalterable placement on the No Fly List. See Am. Compl. ¶ 143 (noting that the purported

delays in this process come “as a result of his status on the [watchlist] and No Fly List”

(emphasis added)); see also id. ¶ 7 (attributing this delay to only the No Fly List). The Court

cannot enter an order prohibiting TSC from disseminating the No Fly List because it lacks

jurisdiction to determine whether Khalid is properly included in it. And as long as TSC retains

the authority to disseminate the No Fly List, the Court cannot redress any alleged delays in

Khalid’s visa application by prohibiting distribution of his watchlist status.

       Khalid nonetheless insists that the Court can order changes to the current operation of the

watchlist if it finds that it cannot remove him without modifying an order of the TSA

Administrator. See Pl.’s Opp’n at 6–7. He first appears to suggest ordering TSC to remove him

from the watchlist while somehow maintaining his No Fly List designation. Id. at 6. But even if

the Court could order the government to segregate the No Fly List from the other two

components of the watchlist, so that an individual could be removed from the watchlist alone,

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such a remedy would not redress Khalid’s supposed injuries because his No Fly List status could

still be shared. He next suggests that the Court “simply order changes to the process for

placement or removal of individuals on the watchlist.” Id. at 7. But Khalid has not been injured

by any claimed procedural defects in the process of placing or removing individuals from the

watchlist in the absence of a No-Fly designation. As he alleges, “[t]he redress policy which

governs No Fly List annotations . . . does not apply to any other [] Listees, including those who

remain on the [watchlist] although their No Fly List annotation has been removed.” Am. Compl.

¶ 51. In other words, should Khalid be removed from the No Fly List, he will be subject to an

entirely different set of procedures. A preemptive proclamation on the constitutional adequacy

of those procedures would be no more than an advisory opinion, and any order altering the

watchlist-only procedure would fail to redress Khalid’s current injuries as a No Fly List

designee. Because Khalid’s continued No Fly List designation prevents the Court from

redressing any of his claimed injuries, Khalid lacks standing and the Court must dismiss the case.

 IV. Conclusion

       For these reasons, the Court will grant Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. A separate Order

will follow.

       SO ORDERED.

                                                             CHRISTOPHER R. COOPER
                                                             United States District Judge

Date: March 27, 2024

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