Saleh

I. BACKGROUND

24 Plaintiffs allege that Defendants arbitrarily rejected Saleh’s request to file his I-130 25 Petition directly with the U.S. Embassy of Djibouti in contradiction to their written policy, 26 resulting in the forced separation of his four-year-old child from her parents in a war-torn region. 27 The Court will first provide a brief overview of the relevant process for obtaining the family-based immigration visa Saleh seeks before moving to the facts of Plaintiffs’ complaint. A. I-130 Petition Process for Family-Based Visa An I-130 Petition is a form submitted by a U.S. citizen or Lawful Permanent Resident (“LPR”) petitioning to establish a familial relationship with an immediate relative or close relative intending to immigrate to the U.S. See USCIS, I-130, Petition for Alien Relative, Form Details (“I-130 Form Details”), available at https://www.uscis.gov/i-130. There are generally two steps to securing a family-based visa through an I-130 Petition. First, the U.S. citizen files an I-130 Petition with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) on behalf of the noncitizen-relative living abroad,…