Amina Bouarfa v. Secretary, Department of Homeland Security, et al, No. 22-12429 (11th Cir. 2023)
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Plaintiff filed a petition to have her husband classified as her immediate relative so that he would be eligible to adjust his immigration status. The Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security approved the petition but later revoked that approval because Plaintiff’s husband had entered a previous marriage for the purpose of evading immigration laws. Plaintiff sought judicial review of the Secretary’s marriage-fraud determination. The district court dismissed her complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because it determined that Plaintiff’s complaint challenged a discretionary decision.
The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the judgment in favor of the Secretary and Director. The court explained that Plaintiff asserted that the Secretary reached the wrong outcome when he determined that there was good and sufficient cause to revoke the approval of her petition. The court wrote that the agency has articulated a standard to guide its evaluation of whether good and sufficient cause exists. But the court explained it cannot review Plaintiff’s complaint that the Secretary reached the wrong conclusion in her case. The sole statutory predicate for revocation is that the Secretary deem that there is good and sufficient cause. That the Secretary has, in his discretion, created additional standards to explain what constitutes good and sufficient cause and linked that determination in Plaintiff’s case to the marriage-fraud provision does not alter the bar on judicial review of the Secretary’s discretionary decision.
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