Court Opinion

ID: 9556752
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-18 16:02:32.735924+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:01:13.918331
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                            FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

No. 22-5262                                                    September Term, 2022
                                                               FILED ON: AUGUST 18, 2023
L'ASSOCIATION DES AMÉRICAINS ACCIDENTELS, ET AL.,
                   APPELLANTS

v.

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE, ET AL.,
                   APPELLEES

                           Appeal from the United States District Court
                                   for the District of Columbia
                                       (No. 1:21-cv-02933)

       Before: MILLETT, PILLARD and WILKINS, Circuit Judges.

                                        JUDGMENT

        This case was considered on the record from the United States District Court for the District
of Columbia and on the briefs and oral arguments of the parties. The court has afforded the issues
full consideration and determined they do not warrant a published opinion. See D.C. CIR. R. 36(d).
For the reasons stated below, it is hereby

       ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that the appeal be DISMISSED.

        In March 2020, responding to a global pandemic, the State Department curtailed
nonemergency services at all United States consular posts abroad. People seeking to relinquish
their U.S. citizenship were thus temporarily unable to appear before a consular officer and swear
an oath of their knowing and voluntary desire to give up their U.S. nationality. See 8 U.S.C.
§ 1481(a)(5). Because Department policy requires an in-person appearance and oath, see 7
FOREIGN AFFAIRS MANUAL § 1262.3, people seeking to shed their U.S. citizenship had to wait.
Six weeks after the initial suspension, the State Department adopted a reopening framework that
allowed each consular post to determine which services it could safely offer under local public
health conditions. Some diplomatic missions resumed in-person loss-of-nationality appointments,
others placed requestors on waitlists, and some have not administered renunciation oaths at all for
more than three years.
                                                 1
        Eleven individuals and an advocacy organization sued the State Department, alleging that
the State Department’s suspension of and delay in resuming renunciation services violated the
fundamental right to expatriate voluntarily and amounted to unreasonably delayed agency action.
The district court dismissed plaintiffs’ challenge to the suspension as moot, dismissed the
substantive due process challenge for failure to state a claim, and granted summary judgment to
the State Department on the claim of unreasonable delay. Plaintiffs now appeal.

        We dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. Time has whittled away the plaintiffs’ live
claims. The claims of seven individual plaintiffs are moot because they have successfully
renounced their American citizenship. The remaining four individual plaintiffs lack standing to
seek injunctive relief because they either failed to request or to attend a renunciation appointment.
The State Department policy suspending renunciation services worldwide is no longer in place,
mooting the organization’s suspension challenge. And, finally, the organization’s challenge to
delays in processing renunciation requests is also moot because the only member who has not yet
renounced has been granted an appointment to appear in person later this year to renounce his
citizenship.

                                                  I.

        The eleven individual plaintiffs in this case are—or, as we will explain, were—Americans
living abroad. Four reside in France, three in Germany, and the remaining plaintiffs live in Finland,
Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Singapore. Co-plaintiff L’Association des Américains
Accidentels (the Association) is a French nonprofit organization whose stated mission is “to defend
and represent the interests of persons holding American nationality, but residing outside the United
States, against the harmful effects of the extraterritorial nature of the U.S. law.” Am. Compl. ¶ 15,
L’Association des Américains Accidentels v. U.S. Dep’t of State, No. 1:21-cv-02933-TNM (D.D.C.
Dec. 27, 2021), ECF No. 12 [hereinafter Am. Compl.]. Plaintiffs allege that, by enacting the
Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), 26 U.S.C. §§ 1471-1474, Congress made the
lives of Americans abroad “a financial nightmare.” Am. Compl. ¶ 3.

        Each individual plaintiff wishes to relinquish U.S. citizenship to avoid their reporting
obligations and other direct or indirect tax-compliance burdens of U.S. law. While there are
several paths to surrendering citizenship, these plaintiffs seek to pursue one in particular: swearing
an oath of renunciation abroad before a U.S. diplomatic or consular officer pursuant to 8 U.S.C.
§ 1481(a)(5). Until a prospective renunciant swears the oath of renunciation, a consular officer
confirms that the oath is voluntarily and knowingly made, see 7 FOREIGN AFFAIRS MANUAL
§ 1261(d), and the State Department issues a certificate of loss of nationality (CLN), see 22 C.F.R.
§ 50.50, the prospective renunciant will be considered an American citizen both in the United
States and abroad, see 8 U.S.C § 1501.

        The global spread of a novel coronavirus, COVID-19, interrupted the ordinary process by
which Americans may renounce their citizenship at diplomatic missions overseas. In the early
days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Office of Management and Budget directed agencies to “take
appropriate steps to prioritize all resources to slow the transmission of COVID-19, while ensuring
[that] mission-critical activities continue.” J.A. 127 (Gov’t Statement of Material Facts Not in

                                                  2
Dispute (SUMF) ¶ 4) (alteration in original) (quoting J.A. 47-48 (Benning Decl. ¶ 18)). In
response, the State Department suspended “routine” consular services on March 20, 2020,
including processing non-emergency passport requests, administering voting assistance programs,
and scheduling citizenship-renunciation appointments. Id. (Gov’t SUMF ¶ 5); J.A. 47-49
(Benning Decl. ¶¶ 18-20).

        That worldwide suspension was short-lived. By May 1, 2020, the State Department
adopted the Diplomacy Strong Framework, under which the principal officers in charge of U.S.
offices or diplomatic missions abroad had discretion to determine which services their posts could
safely offer. See J.A. 48-49 (Benning Decl. ¶¶ 19-20); J.A. 90-91 (diplomatic cable announcing
Diplomacy Strong Framework); 22 U.S.C. § 3902(3). That Framework described a multi-phased
approach to discretionary resumption of in-person consular operations, with renunciation
appointments becoming available in Phase Three. J.A. 48-49 (Benning Decl. ¶ 20).

        In September 2021, the State Department policy shifted again, this time to a “holistic”
approach known as the “COVID-19 Mitigation Process” that allowed each consular post to
determine what services it could offer safely based on local public health indicators. See J.A. 50-
51 (Benning Decl. ¶ 23); J.A. 120, 124 (announcing that the COVID-19 Mitigation Process
supersedes the Diplomacy Strong Framework). Under the COVID-19 Mitigation Process, as with
the Diplomacy Strong Framework before it, the availability of renunciation appointments would
depend on the principal officers’ assessment of risk. Those missions that resumed renunciation
appointments faced backlogs; many resorted to placing applicants on waitlists, and processing
appointment requests in the order that they were received. See J.A. 54-61 (Benning Decl. ¶¶ 28,
31-36).

        In November 2021, the Association and individual expatriates sued the State Department,
alleging that State’s total suspension of renunciation interviews violated the Due Process Clause
of the Constitution and that the suspension and subsequent interview delays violated the
Administrative Procedure Act (APA). See Compl. ¶¶ 7, 10, 15-25, 104, L’Association des
Américains Accidentels v. U.S. Dep’t of State, No. 1:21-cv-02933-TNM (D.D.C. Nov. 8, 2021),
ECF No. 1. The plaintiffs asserted that the State Department had effectively eliminated their
means of “exercis[ing] the right to voluntarily renounce,” which they claimed violated both a
fundamental constitutional right and a statutory duty. Am. Compl. ¶ 103. The eleven individual
plaintiffs wished to swear the renunciation oath at U.S. missions in Europe and Asia, but some had
“been waiting for close to two years” to do so. Am. Compl. ¶ 106.

        Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief. See Am. Compl., Prayer for Relief (a)-
(g). First, they sought a declaratory judgment that the State Department’s suspension of and delay
in providing renunciation services violated both the Due Process Clause and the APA. Am.
Compl., Prayer for Relief (a)-(d). Second, plaintiffs sought “an order requiring Defendants to
immediately resume renunciation-related services,” “an order requiring Defendants to provide
renunciation-related services within a reasonable timeframe with all deliberate speed and without
further delay,” and “[t]o the extent necessary, . . . an order requiring Defendants to reform their
renunciation policies and practices to ensure that these services are provided in a timely and
efficient manner.” Am. Compl., Prayer for Relief (e)-(g).

                                                3
        The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The district court dismissed as
moot plaintiffs’ challenge to the suspension of renunciation services but addressed on the merits
their challenge to the waitlists. L’Association des Américains Accidentels v. U.S. Dep’t of State
(L’Association), 633 F. Supp. 3d 74, 77 (D.D.C. 2022). On the waitlist challenge, the district court
granted summary judgment to the State Department, finding no due process violation or
unreasonable delay. Id. at 87. Plaintiffs timely appealed, challenging the district court’s holding
that the suspension claim was moot, that plaintiffs had failed to state a legally viable due process
claim, and that the government was entitled to summary judgment on the APA claim.

        As the litigation progressed and the COVID-19 pandemic abated, many embassies returned
to routine operations and individual plaintiffs obtained the relief they requested. In March 2022,
three months after filing suit, two plaintiffs successfully renounced their U.S. citizenship at posts
in Singapore and Milan and received certificates to that effect. See J.A. 140-41 (Kracklauer Decl.
¶¶ 1, 11); J.A. 178 (Supp. Benning Decl. ¶ 5). By June 2022, American diplomatic posts in Paris
and Marseille were “operating at all functions and not subject to COVID-19 related restrictions,”
enabling another two plaintiffs to attend in-person renunciation interviews, swear the oath, and
receive CLNs. J.A. 177 (Supp. Benning Decl. ¶ 4); see L’Association des Américains Accidentels
v. U.S. Dep’t of State, No. 22-5262, Doc. 1999596, at 2 (D.C. Cir. May 17, 2023) [hereinafter State
Department Letter]. By the time the district court issued its memorandum opinion, yet another
plaintiff had successfully renounced his citizenship at a mission in Frankfurt, Germany. State
Department Letter 2; see also J.A. 177 (Supp. Benning Decl. ¶ 3). And, by the time the case was
argued before this court in May 2023, two more plaintiffs had successfully renounced in
Switzerland and France, leaving only four individual plaintiffs who had not yet attended a
renunciation interview. State Department Letter 2; J.A. 177, 179 (Supp. Benning Decl. ¶¶ 4, 8).
Of those four individuals, one secured an appointment to take the oath at the consular post in
Frankfurt, Germany but failed to attend. State Department Letter at 2. As for the final three, the
State Department attests—and plaintiffs do not dispute—that those plaintiffs did not request
appointments at all. See J.A. 10-11; J.A. 57, 59 (Benning Decl. ¶¶ 32, 34), J.A. 130; State
Department Letter 2.

        Some embassies have yet to resume offering the full complement of consular services. But
of the litigants identified before this court, only Olivier Vaury, who is a not a named plaintiff but
a member of L’Association des Américains Accidentels identified in support of the organization’s
standing, has not had the opportunity to renounce his citizenship before a consular officer. Mr.
Vaury’s appointment has been scheduled for November of this year.

                                                 4
                                                 II.

       We lack jurisdiction over plaintiffs’ challenge to the global suspension of renunciation
services and the State Department’s allegedly unreasonable delay in holding oath appointments.
The claims of seven of the individual plaintiffs are moot and the remaining four individuals lack
standing to seek injunctive or declaratory relief. The Association lacks standing to pursue its
challenge to appointment delays because Olivier Vaury’s individual claim, on which the
Association’s standing depends, is also moot and therefore not redressable by this court.

        Our jurisdiction is limited to the resolution of “cases” and “controversies” within the
meaning of Article III of the Constitution. Plaintiffs who invoke our jurisdiction must therefore
establish standing by showing that they have suffered a legally cognizable injury that is traceable
to the defendant and likely to be redressed by the requested relief. Already, LLC v. Nike, Inc., 568
U.S. 85, 90-91 (2013). That requirement applies throughout the litigation. When a case presents
issues that “are no longer ‘live’ or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome,”
the case is moot “and therefore no longer a ‘Case’ or ‘Controversy’ for purposes of Article III.”
Id. at 91 (quoting Murphy v. Hunt, 455 U.S. 478, 481 (1982) (per curiam)).

        First, we lack jurisdiction over the plaintiffs’ challenge to the State Department’s
suspension of renunciation services. The Association and the seven individual plaintiffs who have
succeeded in renouncing their American nationality no longer have a “personal stake” in the
resolution of the suspension claim. Genesis Healthcare Corp. v. Symczyk, 569 U.S. 66, 71 (2013)
(quoting Camreta v. Greene, 563 U.S. 692, 701 (2011)); Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393, 402 (1975).
They have received the relief they requested: The State Department ended its suspension of
renunciation services and made those services available to plaintiffs. Am. Compl. ¶ 108; see also
id. Prayer for Relief (e)-(g). Now that the State Department has provided and plaintiffs have taken
advantage of the opportunity to expatriate—or failed to do so for reasons not of the State
Department’s making—a decision of this court could neither “compel that result . . . no[r] serve to
prevent it.” DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 312, 317 (1974) (per curiam); accord Util. Solid
Waste Activities Grp. v. EPA, 901 F.3d 414, 437 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (per curiam). Their claims are
therefore moot. See DeFunis, 416 U.S. at 317; see also Lemon v. Green, 514 F.3d 1312, 1315
(D.C. Cir. 2008) (holding plaintiff’s claims moot when “intervening events make it impossible [for
the court] to grant the prevailing party effective relief” (quoting Burlington N. R.R. Co. v. Surface
Transp. Bd., 75 F.3d 685, 688 (D.C. Cir. 1996))).

         Plaintiffs contend that the suspension policy continues, albeit under a different name. They
emphasize that the State Department has yet to resume offering renunciation services at posts in
the Czech Republic, Latvia, and Greece. But none of the four individual plaintiffs, nor any
identified member of the Association who has yet to renounce, seeks to do so at those posts. And
in any case, since June 2021, the State Department has required all diplomatic missions to provide
consular services to all U.S. citizens regardless of residence. J.A. 102-03. Thus, even if there
were a plaintiff who resided in a country in which the U.S. consular post has not resumed
renunciation services, such an individual would be able to go to an alternative consulate or embassy
to fulfill the requirements of expatriation. In sum, an order declaring suspension of renunciation
services unlawful and setting it aside would be purely advisory.

                                                 5
        Seeking alternative footing from which to press their challenge to the now-terminated
suspension of renunciation services, plaintiffs invoke the exception to mootness for issues capable
of repetition yet evading review, see Appellants Br. 15, but that doctrine is a poor fit for this claim.
The exception applies when a challenged action is too short in duration to be litigated fully before
its cessation and there is a reasonable expectation that the same plaintiff will be subjected to the
same action again. See Shapiro v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 40 F.4th 609, 615 (D.C. Cir. 2022) (citing
Weinstein v. Bradford, 419 U.S. 147, 149 (1975) (per curiam)). These plaintiffs lack any such
reasonable expectation. Nor do plaintiffs argue that any other exception to mootness applies.

        Even allowing that the six-week suspension was too brief for its legality to be litigated, the
individual plaintiffs who have successfully renounced their U.S. citizenship could not be affected
by any future denial of renunciation services. And the plaintiffs who have yet to renounce lack
standing to challenge the unavailability of appointments—whether due to past suspension or
continuing backlogs—because any asserted injuries would be self-inflicted: Three of them did not
request renunciation appointments at any consular post, and the fourth failed to appear for a
scheduled appointment. Their lack of opportunity to renounce citizenship before a consular officer
is thus of their own making, not fairly traceable to the State Department’s conduct. See Food &
Water Watch, Inc. v. Vilsack, 808 F.3d 905, 919 (D.C. Cir. 2015); Nat’l Fam. Plan. & Reprod.
Health Ass’n v. Gonzales, 468 F.3d 826, 831 (D.C. Cir. 2006).

        In any event, plaintiffs’ protest that the global suspension of in-person services “can be
easily reinstated,” whether in response to COVID-19 or “for other reasons, such as the Ukrainian-
Russian war or future pandemics,” Appellants Br. 16-17, is speculative. There is little reason to
think that the State Department is poised to reimpose a global suspension of renunciation services
that would have any effect on any of the plaintiffs in this case. Further, should the State
Department suspend renunciation services in response to another crisis, the legal issues presented
would differ and, as the State Department points out, “would need to be evaluated against a
different factual record.” Appellees Br. 27.

        Second, we lack jurisdiction over the plaintiffs’ claim of unreasonable delay in scheduling
renunciation appointments. Plaintiffs assert that the State Department has abdicated its
“mandatory duty to process voluntary renunciation applications,” Am. Compl. ¶ 102, in violation
of the Administrative Procedure Act, and seek an order requiring the State Department “to provide
renunciation-related services within a reasonable timeframe,” id. Prayer for Relief (f).

        As to this challenge, too, no individual plaintiff has a live claim. For the reasons already
noted in connection with the suspension claim, seven of the individual plaintiffs’ claims are moot
and the other four individual plaintiffs lack standing. And the Association lacks a live
unreasonable-delay claim. Plaintiffs challenge delays in receiving appointments to take the
renunciation oath but do not allege that the State Department has unlawfully delayed processing
applications after interviews have been scheduled. Because the only member the Association
identified to support its associational standing has been scheduled for a renunciation appointment,
the Association can no longer establish redressable harm from the challenged delay in scheduling
a renunciation interview.

                                                   6
        A membership organization has standing when (1) “at least one of [its] members would
otherwise have standing to sue in his or her own right;” (2) the interest the organization seeks to
protect is “germane” to its purpose; and (3) “neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested
requires the participation of individual members.” See Sierra Club v. EPA, 755 F.3d 968, 973
(D.C. Cir. 2014); accord Hunt v. Wash. State Apple Advert. Comm’n, 432 U.S. 333, 343
(1977). To establish standing, the organization must identify through affidavits or other evidence
a specific member who has suffered an injury-in-fact that can be fairly traced to the defendant’s
conduct and redressed by a favorable judicial decision. See Save Jobs USA v. U.S. Dep’t of
Homeland Sec., 942 F.3d 504, 508 (D.C. Cir. 2019) (explaining that, “[b]ecause the district court
disposed of this case at summary judgment,” the plaintiff must adduce “specific facts”
demonstrating standing (quoting Shays v. FEC, 414 F.3d 76, 84 (D.C. Cir. 2005))). The
Association fails to show redressability here.

         The Association rests its standing to challenge the State Department’s delays on the claim
of one member, Olivier Vaury. Mr. Vaury attested before the district court that he is a member of
the Association, that he requested an appointment to renounce his citizenship before a consular
officer in January and again in April 2022, and that his appointment “ha[s] not yet been scheduled.”
J.A. 148 (Vaury Decl. ¶¶ 1-3). The State Department recently notified the court that it has
processed Mr. Vaury’s application and scheduled him for an in-person oath appointment at the
Paris embassy in November 2023. State Department Letter 2; see also L’Association des
Américains Accidentels v. U.S. Dep’t of State, No. 22-5262, Doc. 1998922, at 3 (D.C. Cir. May
12, 2023) (Ex. A). A court order ensuring Mr. Vaury an appointment for an in-person interview
within a reasonable time would have fully redressed his injury from the unreasonable delay alleged
in the Association’s complaint. The State Department’s provision of that very relief thus leaves
this court no more to do. See United Steelworkers of Am., AFL-CIO-CLC v. Rubber Mfrs. Ass’n,
783 F.2d 1117, 1120 (D.C. Cir. 1986) (per curiam). The Association’s reference to
“[a]pproximately 852 [unnamed] members” who have yet to be able to renounce their U.S.
citizenship, J.A. 168, fails to demonstrate the requisite specificity to establish standing, see Shays,
414 F.3d at 84. Without evidence identifying a specific member whose claimed injury-in-fact this
court could direct the district court on remand to redress, the Association cannot invoke
associational standing to press its members’ claims.

                                                ***

       For the foregoing reasons, we dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

        Pursuant to D.C. Circuit Rule 36, this disposition will not be published. The Clerk is
directed to withhold issuance of the mandate herein until seven days after resolution of any timely
petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc. See FED. R. APP. P. 41(b); D.C. CIR. R. 41(b).

                                                  7
Per Curiam

              FOR THE COURT:
              Mark J. Langer, Clerk

        BY:   /s/
              Daniel J. Reidy
              Deputy Clerk

    8