The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of an illegal immigrant who sought a visa to stay in the U.S. after being denied one due to his alleged membership in the MS-13 gang.
In 2010, Sandra Muñoz, a U.S. citizen, married Luis Asencio Cordero, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador. Hoping to live with her in the U.S., Muñoz filed a petition with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to classify Asencio Cordero as an immediate relative so that she could apply for a visa.
After USCIS approved Muñoz’s application, Asencio Cordero traveled to his home country of El Salvador to apply for a visa at the consulate. He went through several interviews but was denied a visa because he was seeking entry to the United States solely to commit a criminal offense.
Asensio Cordero believed he had been denied a visa because of his alleged ties to MS-13, a violent gang based in El Salvador, and because he has tattoos that identify him as a gang member.
Asencio Cordero and Muñoz subsequently filed a lawsuit against the State Department, arguing that Muñoz had a right to reside in the United States with her spouse under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and that by revoking her husband’s visa, she should be afforded due process to challenge in court the denial of her husband’s visa application.
On Friday, Justice Amy Coney Barrett delivered the majority opinion, stating:[n] [American] Citizens have no fundamental liberty to allow their non-citizen spouses to enter the country.”
Barrett writes:
here, Muñoz claims a “fundamental right to marry,” but in fact he is claiming a more specific right: the right to reside in the United States with his foreign spouse. It involves more than marriage or cohabitation between spouses. This includes the right to allow your foreign husband to enter (and remain in) the United States. As Muñoz argues, she has a “right to marriage…that right is sufficiently important that it cannot be unduly burdened without due process regarding the determination of a refusal of entry that would prevent her from residing with her spouse in her country of nationality.”The asserted right thus described is fundamental enough to be implicitly included in “liberty,” but unlike other implicit fundamental rights, the deprivation of that right does not trigger strict scrutiny.
[Emphasis added]…
Since the country’s beginnings, the admission of foreigners has been characterized as a “benefit.” [and] “You have no right.” And when Congress began restricting immigration in the late 19th century, the laws it enacted made no exceptions for spouses of citizens. And Congress has occasionally granted special immigration treatment to marriages, but it has never made spousal immigration a matter of rights. [Emphasis added]
…
Muñoz’s assertion of others’ due process rights in legal proceedings would have disturbing collateral consequences: Her position would usher in a new trend in constitutional law. It prevents governments from taking actions that “indirectly or incidentally” burden the legal rights of their citizens. To be sure, Muñoz suffered harm from the denial of Asensio Cordero’s visa application, but that harm does not entitle her to a constitutional right to participate in his consular proceedings.
[Emphasis added]
Previously, the district court sided with the State Department in the case, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the case, finding that Judge Muñoz had a constitutionally protected liberty interest in applying for a visa.
“The Ninth Circuit is the only court of appeals to have accepted this asserted right; every other circuit that has considered the issue has rejected it,” Barrett wrote. “Today, we resolve an open question…We hold that citizens do not have a fundamental liberty right with respect to the admission of their noncitizen spouses into the United States.”
Barrett was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh. Justice Neil Gorsuch filed a concurring opinion. Justice Sotomayor dissented, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson.
This incident Department of State v. Munozno. 23–334 In the Supreme Court of the United States.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter. here.
