Ahmed

MEMORANDUM & ORDER

Plaintiff Saeed Ahmed challenges the procedures used by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to adjudicate plaintiffs application for adjustment of status to lawful permanent resident (LPR). He seeks declaratory and injunctive relief pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Now before the court is defendant Mayorkas’s motion to dismiss. Defendant, the director of the USCIS, contends that this court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to review plaintiffs operative complaint. Having considered the parties’ arguments and submissions, the court enters the following memorandum and order.

BACKGROUND

I. Plaintiff

Plaintiff Ahmed is a citizen of Pakistan who was granted asylum by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (“INS”) on January 14, 2000. In his asylum application, Ahmed indicated that he feared further arrest and torture for his involvement in the Muhajir Quomi Movement (MQM), which among other things represents the interests of Urdu-speaking Muslim Pakistanis who immigrated from India to Pakistan in the wake of the 1948 partition. On February 5, 2001, plaintiff applied to USCIS, the appropriate successor agency to the…