Sessions, Att'y Gen. v. Morales-santana
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 12, 2017 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- June 12, 2017
- Term
- October Term 2016
- Vote
- 8–0
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
- Constitutional ruling
- Federal law held unconstitutional
Opinion excerpt
Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court. This case concerns a gender-based differential in the law governing acquisition of U.S. citizenship by a child born abroad, when one parent is a U.S. citizen, the other, a citizen of another nation. The main rule appears in 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a)(7) (1958 ed.), now § 1401(g) (2012 ed.). Applicable to married couples, § 1401(a)(7) requires a period of physical presence in the United States for the U.S.-citizen parent. The requirement, as initially prescribed, was ten years' physical presence prior to the child's birth, § 601(g) (1940 ed.); currently, the requirement is five years prebirth, § 1401(g) (2012 ed.). That main rule is rendered applicable to unwed U.S.-citizen fathers by § 1409(a). Congress ordered an exception, however, for unwed U.S.-citizen mothers. Contained in § 1409(c), the exception allows an unwed mother to transmit her citizenship to a child born abroad if she has lived in the United States for just one year prior to the child's birth. The respondent in this case, Luis Ramón Morales-Santana, was born in the Dominican Republic when his father was just 20 days short of meeting § 1401(a)(7)'s physical-presence requirement. Opposing removal to the Dominican Republic, Morales-Santana asserts that the equal protection principle implicit in the Fifth Amendment entitles him to citizenship stature. We hold that the…
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