A federal appeals court on Tuesday dealt a significant blow to a U.S. citizen’s attempt to challenge his placement on the government’s terrorist watchlist, ruling that a lower court lacks the authority to hear the case while a separate “No Fly List” order remains active.
The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit highlights the rigid, often overlapping legal hurdles faced by individuals seeking to clear their names from federal security databases.
The case began in 2019 when Saad Bin Khalid, a U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent, was barred from boarding an Emirates Airline flight from Pakistan to the United States. Following the denial, Khalid utilized the Department of Homeland Security’s Traveler Redress Inquiry Program (DHS TRIP).
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The inquiry confirmed that Khalid was on the No Fly List, a subset of the broader Terrorist Screening Dataset, commonly known as the terrorist watchlist. Khalid subsequently filed a lawsuit in federal district court, challenging his inclusion on both lists as a violation of his constitutional due process rights.
The legal battle centered on a complex jurisdictional “alphabet soup.” Under federal law, challenges to the No Fly List—once a formal administrative review is complete—must go directly to a federal appeals court. However, challenges to the broader terrorist watchlist usually start in a local district court.
Khalid’s legal team argued that his placement on the watchlist caused him “excessive burdens” during travel and led to significant delays in processing a visa for his wife.
The court, however, found that because the two lists are “interdependent,” a district court cannot order someone’s removal from the watchlist without effectively overturning the No Fly List order—an action the law reserves strictly for the appellate level.
“Any remedy that removes Khalid from the Terrorist Watchlist would violate the TSA Final Order affirming Khalid’s No Fly List designation and thereby set it aside, something only the circuit court may do,” wrote Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson in the court’s opinion.
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The ruling was not unanimous. Circuit Judge Cornelia Pillard issued a sharp dissent, arguing that the decision leaves citizens in a “legal limbo” where the most critical part of their security status—the watchlist placement—becomes shielded from scrutiny.
Pillard noted that the Threat Screening Center (TSC) is the “nerve center” of the operation and that the district court should be able to review its decisions independently of the TSA’s flight-specific orders.
“The majority’s focus on preserving the relevance of the TSA Final Order [is] at odds with the limited role of TSA,” Pillard wrote. “It makes no sense to foreclose review of the Center’s watchlisting decision in order to safeguard TSA’s one-off order.”
The court suggested that Khalid is not entirely without recourse but faces a specific “ordering problem.” To move forward, he must first successfully challenge the No Fly List in the appellate court. Only after that order is vacated could a district court legally address his status on the broader watchlist.
As of Tuesday’s ruling, Khalid remains on both the No Fly List and the federal terrorist watchlist.
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