The United States Supreme Court on Friday handed down a significant decision, ruling against the constitutional rights of American citizens to sue over visa denials for their foreign spouses.
In a 6-3 verdict in the case of Department of State v. Sandra Munoz, the court determined that the government does not violate constitutional rights when barring non-citizen spouses from entering the country without explanation.
Sandra Munoz, a U.S. citizen and civil rights lawyer, found herself unable to challenge the denial of her El Salvadoran husband’s visa application after the U.S.
Department of State waited three years to explain that it suspected him of gang membership.
The couple, married in 2010 with a child, has been separated since 2015.
Visa denials in the U.S. are typically not subject to court review unless the government violates an applicant’s constitutional rights in the process.
Munoz argued that the delay in explaining the denial infringed on her due process rights by interfering with her fundamental right to marry.
However, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing for the court, stated that her claim “involves more than marriage and more than spousal cohabitation — it includes the right to have her noncitizen husband enter (and remain in) the United States.”
The Supreme Court’s decision reversed a 2022 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which had revived Munoz’s lawsuit against the State Department.
The ruling was praised by the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a conservative group that supported the State Department in this case.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented, emphasizing that excluding a citizen’s spouse burdens her right to marriage and requires the government to provide a factual basis for its decision.
