Atieh v. Riordan, No. 12-2314 (1st Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff was a Jordanian national who entered the United States illegally. Once Plaintiff was placed in removal proceedings, he married his first cousin, a marriage that lasted one year. Plaintiff subsequently married his second wife. Both marriages were to United States citizens. Plaintiff's second wife filed an I-130 petition on Plaintiff's behalf. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) denied the petition, concluding that Plaintiff previously entered into his first marriage for the purpose of evading the immigration laws. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed. Plaintiff and his wife filed an amended complaint in the district court seeking to set aside the BIA's decision. The district court dismissed the action for failure to state a claim. The First Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the judgment of the district court without reaching the merits of the appeal, holding (1) the district court erred in invoking the plausibility standard in deciding that this case did not warrant either discovery or trial, as the plausibility standard does not apply to a complaint for judicial review of a final agency action; and (2) the methodologic error was not harmless where the parties failed to file the administrative record with the court.
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