Justice Sonia Sotomayor blasted her Supreme Court colleagues in a fiery dissent on Friday, arguing that the court’s decision in the spousal visa case will be especially harmful to same-sex couples.
“Same-sex couples may be forcibly relocated to countries that do not recognize same-sex marriage or that criminalize homosexuality,” Justice Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Elana Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The ruling concerns the case of Sandra Muñoz, a U.S. citizen married to a Salvadoran national who was denied an immigrant visa to the U.S. Muñoz sued the State Department over the matter, arguing that the government had not shown sufficient cause to deny her husband a visa.
Meanwhile, the State Department has alleged that authorities suspect her husband is a member of the notorious MS-13 gang and that his tattoos suggest ties to the gang – charges the couple deny.
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Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis/File)
But in a 6-3 decision, the court ruled that while Munoz had the right to marry, her husband did not have the right to live in the United States with her.
“Indeed, Congress’s longstanding restrictions on spousal immigration, including limitations on admissions, are counterproductive,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the majority opinion. “Generally, Congress sets the conditions of admission and the Department of State enforces those requirements at U.S. embassies and consulates abroad.”
In addition to Justice Coney Barrett, Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts joined the majority.
But in her dissent, Sotomayor argued that the majority’s decision puts the fate of American couples in the hands of other governments, a burden that will fall most heavily on same-sex couples.
United States Supreme Court (AP Photo/Maryam Zuhaib/File)
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“A majority that does not respect the right to marry in this country forces Americans to rely on the vagaries of other countries’ immigration laws,” Sotomayor wrote. “The burden will fall most heavily on same-sex couples and those who cannot, for legal or economic reasons, resettle in their foreign spouse’s country of origin.”
Sotomayor also criticized the State Department’s assessment of the man’s tattoos, arguing that some of them are symbols of “pan-Latino identity.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor (Eric Li/Bloomberg via Getty Images/File)
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“Asensio Cordero has no criminal history, but he has several tattoos that he got as a teenager,” Sotomayor wrote. “The tattoos depict a variety of subjects, including the Virgin of Guadalupe, Sigmund Freud, tribal patterns with footprints, and theatrical masks depicting dice and playing cards. Some of these images have deep meaning in Latin American culture.”