Harry William Pelham HESLOP, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ATTORNEY GENERAL OF the UNITED STATES, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security, United States Citizenship and Immigration Service, Ruth Dorochoff, District Director, District Tampa, United States Citizenship and Immigration Service, Leslie A. Meeker, Acting Tampa Field Office Director, United States Citizenship and Immigration Service, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 14-12469
United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.
Dec. 15, 2014.
Non-Argument Calendar.
591 F. Appx 580
We affirm the district court‘s dismissal of Taylor‘s claims for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Taylor essentially argues that Judges Feren and Kaplan acted improperly when making rulings about child-custody and child-protection orders. She further argues that Philips‘s and Randolph‘s visits to her home to check on her child‘s well-being were improper. The district court correctly concluded that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over the protection orders because a ruling would constitute direct interference with final state-court judgments. If Philips‘s and Randolph‘s visits were made pursuant to court order, the district court correctly concluded that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over the visits: any ruling would constitute interference with the state-court custody and well-being determinations. If Randolph and Philips acted independently of the state-court custody proceedings, the district court correctly dismissed Taylor‘s complaint for failure to state a claim against defendants Randolph and Philips.
We will dismiss a case for failure to state a claim if the complaint on its face fails to put forth sufficient factual matter and legal basis for the court to draw a reasonable inference that the defendant is liable. Wooten v. Quicken Loans, Inc., 626 F.3d 1187, 1196 (11th Cir.2010) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009)). Bare factual allegations that a defendant has acted in a harmful manner or formulaic recitation of legal elements are not enough. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678-79, 129 S.Ct. at 1949-50. We construe pro se pleadings liberally, but we will not act as counsel for any party. GJR Invs. v. Cnty. of Escambia, 132 F.3d 1359, 1369 (11th Cir.1998), overruled on other grounds by Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937. “Where a complaint pleads facts that are merely consistent with a defendant‘s liability, it stops short of the line between possibility and plausibility of entitlement to relief.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. at 1949 (quotations omitted).
We affirm the dismissal of the complaint against Randolph and Philips for failure to state a claim. The complaint was a narrative about Randolph‘s and Philips‘s acts that provided no indication Taylor was entitled to relief. Taylor‘s later filings assert the same facts accompanied by a long listing of constitutional amendments. Although we construe liberally pro se complaints, we cannot conclude that a claim exists from this bare list of facts or laws.
AFFIRMED.
Sarah L. Vuong, U.S. Department of Justice, J. Max Weintraub, U.S. Department of Justice Office of Immigration Litigation, Washington, DC, John F. Rudy, III, U.S. Attorney‘s Office, Tampa, FL, for Defendants-Appellees.
Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, JORDAN, and JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Harry Heslop, a citizen of the United Kingdom, appeals the district court‘s dismissal of his complaint against the following defendants in their official capacities: Eric Holder, Jr., the United States Attorney General; Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; Alejandro Mayorkas, the Director of
I.
On November 2, 2005, Heslop was admitted to the United States as a conditional permanent resident. He obtained that status after USCIS approved his petition for classification as an “alien entrepreneur” under
In October 2007, Heslop petitioned for removal of the condition on his residence. USCIS denied his petition, finding that he had failed to demonstrate that he created or would soon create the requisite number of full-time jobs. Heslop appealed and submitted additional evidence for USCIS‘s consideration. On December 15, 2010, USCIS vacated its prior decision but denied Heslop‘s petition once more. Specifically, it found that Heslop had “submitted evidence of only 2 full-time employees.”
In March 2010, Heslop married a United States citizen. He later filed an application to adjust his status to permanent resident on the basis of that marriage, and USCIS approved that application on May 18, 2011. Like the grant of permanent resident status to an alien entrepreneur, the grant of permanent resident status to an alien spouse is also on a conditional basis. See
On November 11, 2011, Heslop applied for naturalization. On the application, he stated that he was eligible for naturalization because he had resided continuously in the United States for at least five years “after being lawfully admitted for permanent residence.”
Having exhausted his administrative remedies, Heslop filed suit in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida in April 2013. He sought review of USCIS‘s denial of his application for naturalization under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA),
In February 2014, the district court granted that motion to dismiss. Concerning Heslop‘s INA claim, the court observed that Heslop had obtained conditional permanent resident status based on his marriage but had failed to allege that the condition had been removed. The court determined that Heslop‘s failure was fatal to his claim because conditional permanent residents were ineligible for naturalization. Alternatively, the court noted that, even if the condition on Heslop‘s permanent resident status based on his marriage had been removed, “there would still be an issue regarding whether he [had] resided in the United States for at least five years after being lawfully admitted” for permanent residence. Essentially, the court reasoned that, if Heslop could not show that he satisfied the “condition” for alien-entrepreneur status—that he created full-time jobs for at least ten workers in the United States—then he also could not show that he had been “lawfully admitted” for permanent residence on November 2, 2005. And, by extension, he could not establish that his time in the United States from that date through May 18, 2011 counted towards the INA‘s five-year residency requirement. As for Heslop‘s APA claim, the court determined that he could not seek review under the APA because the INA provided an adequate remedy.
Heslop timely filed a motion for reconsideration, which the district court denied in April 2014. This is Heslop‘s appeal of both of the district court‘s orders.
II.
We review de novo a district court‘s grant of a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, accepting the well-pleaded factual allegations in the complaint as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff‘s favor. Adinolfe v. United Techs. Corp., 768 F.3d 1161, 1169 (11th Cir.2014); see Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 679, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1950, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009). Likewise, we review de novo a district court‘s grant of a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Maradiaga v. United States, 679 F.3d 1286, 1291 (11th Cir.2012). We review for an abuse of discretion a district court‘s denial of a motion for reconsideration. Equity Inv. Partners, LP v. Lenz, 594 F.3d 1338, 1342 (11th Cir.2010).
A.
Generally, in order to become a naturalized United States citizen, an applicant must show (among many other things) that he resided continuously in the United States for at least five years “after being lawfully admitted for permanent residence.”
“When an appellant fails to challenge properly on appeal one of the grounds on which the district court based its judgment, he is deemed to have abandoned any challenge of that ground, and it follows that the judgment is due to be affirmed.” Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian Ins. Co., 739 F.3d 678, 680 (11th Cir.2014). Here, the district court relied on two alternative grounds to conclude that Heslop had failed to state a claim under the INA: first, that conditional permanent residents are ineligible for naturalization; and second, that Heslop had not plausibly alleged that he had resided in the United States for at least five years “after being lawfully admitted for permanent residence.” Heslop challenges only the second ground. As a result, we affirm the district court‘s dismissal of his INA claim for failure to state a claim.
B.
Heslop also contends that the district court erred in dismissing his APA claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. He argues that the APA entitles him to judicial review of USCIS‘s denial of his application for naturalization, and he asks us to set aside that decision because it was “arbitrary, capricious, [an] abuse of discretion, [or otherwise] not in accordance with law.” See
The APA provides for judicial review of “final agency action for which there is no other adequate remedy in a court.”
C.
Heslop‘s notice of appeal designates the district court‘s order denying his motion for reconsideration. In his brief to this Court, however, Heslop did not argue that the district court abused its discretion in denying that motion. Indeed, he failed to list any issue at all related to the denial of his motion for reconsideration. Thus, Heslop has abandoned any challenge to that order. See Hamilton v. Southland Christian Sch., Inc., 680 F.3d 1316, 1318 (11th Cir.2012).
AFFIRMED.