# Ibrahim v. Department of Homeland Security **Entity class:** Federal watchlist litigation **Citation:** 912 F.3d 1147 (9th Cir. 2019) **Domains:** No Fly List / redress / due process / Equal Access to Justice Act ## Overview ***Ibrahim v. Department of Homeland Security*** is the litigation through which [[wiki/Rahinah Ibrahim|Rahinah Ibrahim]] established that her placement on the No Fly List originated in an FBI agent's erroneous completion of a nomination form. The record supplies an unusually detailed public account of how one administrative input error propagated across an interlocking watchlist architecture and produced physical, immigration, educational, family, and litigation consequences. The Ninth Circuit described the agent as misunderstanding the form and checking boxes contrary to its instructions. Ibrahim was placed on the No Fly List and IBIS even though the agent did not intend those nominations. The government ultimately conceded that she posed no threat to national security, had never posed such a threat, and should never have been placed on the No Fly List. The case record includes arrest and detention at San Francisco International Airport, inability to return to the United States, disruption of her Stanford doctoral work, visa revocation and later denials, international watchlist exports, inability to attend her own trial, her daughter's inability to board a flight to attend as a witness, and years of contested litigation. The 2019 appellate opinion described more than $3.6 million in litigation cost. The systems principle is exact: **a component may follow its local rule correctly while the whole system produces injustice because the shared root state is wrong**. The case therefore anchors [[wiki/Distributed Erroneous State|Distributed Erroneous State]], [[wiki/Correction Latency|Correction Latency]], [[wiki/Cumulative Downstream Burden|Cumulative Downstream Burden]], and [[wiki/Life-Trajectory Harm|Life-Trajectory Harm]]. ## Relationships - **person:** [[wiki/Rahinah Ibrahim|Rahinah Ibrahim]]. - **watchlist mechanism:** [[wiki/Watchlist Misidentification|Watchlist Misidentification]], [[wiki/Erroneous Watchlist Inclusion|Erroneous Watchlist Inclusion]], and [[wiki/Watchlisting|Watchlisting]]. - **distributed-systems interpretation:** [[wiki/Distributed Erroneous State|Distributed Erroneous State]] and [[wiki/Identity-Rooted Error Amplification|Identity-Rooted Error Amplification]]. - **human impact:** [[wiki/Life-Trajectory Harm|Life-Trajectory Harm]] and [[wiki/Opportunity Foreclosure|Opportunity Foreclosure]]. - **redress:** [[wiki/Watchlist Redress|Watchlist Redress]] and [[wiki/Redress Opacity|Redress Opacity]]. - **master harm map:** [[wiki/Security Harms Topology|Security Harms Topology]]. ## Sources / Provenance - [Ninth Circuit en banc opinion, 912 F.3d 1147](https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/01/02/14-16161.pdf) (2019-01-02). - [Ninth Circuit opinion, 669 F.3d 983](https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2012/02/08/10-15873.pdf) (2012-02-08). - [Federal Judicial Center — National Security Case Studies, No-Fly List chapter](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-JU13-PURL-gpo218949/pdf/GOVPUB-JU13-PURL-gpo218949.pdf) (accessed 2026-09-23). **As of:** 2026-09-23