SCOTUS Today: Dept. of State v. Muñoz

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision today in the case of Dept. of State v. Muñoz. Justice Barrett wrote the opinion for the majority (6) with Justice Sotomayor writing a dissent (joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson).

The case is very reminiscent of Kerry v. Din, a plurality decision. A US citizen spouse wants to bring her husband to the US as an immediate relative. He’s interviewed by the consulate and rejected. In Muñoz, the rejection was based on MS-13 affiliation. In Kerry v. Din, the rejection was based on Taliban affiliation.

Muñoz, like Din, made a constitutional argument: “The right to live with her noncitizen spouse in the United States is implicit in the “liberty” protected by the Fifth Amendment; the denial of her husband’s visa deprived her of this interest, thereby triggering her right to due process; the consular officer violated her right to due process by declining to disclose the basis for finding Asencio-Cordero inadmissible; and this, in turn, enables judicial review, even though visa denials are ordinarily unreviewable by courts.”

SCOTUS rejected this reasoning, writing: “Like the Din plurality, we hold that a citizen does not have a fundamental liberty interest in her noncitizen spouse being admitted to the country.”

-KitJ