Fuentes v. Biden

• Decision Date: 27 January 2023
• Docket Number: 21-cv-03106 (APM)
• Parties: NICHOLAS FUENTES, Plaintiff, v. JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

NICHOLAS FUENTES, Plaintiff,
v.
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., et al., Defendants.

No. 21-cv-03106 (APM)

United States District Court, District of Columbia

January 27, 2023

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Amit P. Mehta United States District Court Judge

Plaintiff Nicholas Fuentes seeks an order declaring that the Transportation Security Administration's (“TSA”) “operation of the No Fly List” violates many of his constitutional rights. Am. Compl., ECF No. 13, at 17. At the core of his complaint is the belief that he is on a no-fly list and that TSA unlawfully uses selection criteria for such lists that contravenes rights protected by the First, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Id. ¶¶ 72, 84, 90, 96, 102. He seeks declaratory relief for his claimed constitutional violations. Id. at 17.^[1] Before he filed suit, however, TSA removed Plaintiff from its “Deny Boarding List.” See Official Capacity Defs.' Mot. to Dismiss Am. Compl., ECF No. 17 [hereinafter Defs.' Mot.], Ex. 1, ECF No. 17-1; Reply Mem. of P & A in Support of Defs.' Mot., ECF No. 19, Vieco Decl., ECF No. 19-1, ¶ 13. As a result of his removal, Plaintiff cannot plausibly make out an injury in fact to establish standing, and so the court lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate his claims.

1

When, as here, a plaintiff seeks “prospective declaratory and injunctive relief, he must establish an ongoing or future injury that is ‘certainly impending'; he may not rest on past injury.” Arpaio v. Obama, 797 F.3d 11, 19 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (quoting Clapper v. Amnesty Int'l USA, 568 U.S. 398, 409 (emphasis omitted)). “[T]hreatened injury must be certainly impending to constitute injury in fact,' and “[a]llegations of possible future injury' are not sufficient.” Clapper, 568 U.S. at 409. “[A] ‘speculative' possibility of future injury does not suffice.” Viasat, Inc. v. FCC, 47 F.4th 769, 778 (D.C. Cir. 2022) (quoting Clapper, 568 U.S. at 410). Nor will an “objectively reasonable likelihood” of injury or an injury dependent upon a “highly attenuated chain of possibilities.” Clapper, 568 U.S. at 410. Importantly, the standing inquiry is “especially rigorous when reaching the merits of the dispute would force [a court] to decide whether an action taken by one of the other two branches of the Federal Government was unconstitutional.” Id. (internal quotations and citation omitted).

Here, TSA removed Plaintiff from its Deny Boarding List on November 2, 2021, three weeks before he filed suit on November 23, 2021. See Compl...