Sessions v. Morales-Santana

Summary

The Supreme Court held that the gender-based difference in the physical-presence requirements for unmarried U.S.-citizen mothers and fathers transmitting citizenship to children born abroad violated the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee. The Court declined to extend the more favorable maternal rule to fathers, instead applying the general physical-presence requirement prospectively and leaving Congress to establish a uniform rule. The judgment of the Second Circuit was affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.

Holdings

1. Morales-Santana had standing to vindicate his deceased father's equal-protection right because he had a close relationship with his father and his father's death created a hindrance to the father's ability to protect his own interests.
2. The gender-based differential in 8 U.S.C. §§ 1401(a)(7) and 1409(a), (c), requiring a longer period of physical presence for unwed U.S.-citizen fathers than for unwed U.S.-citizen mothers, violated the equal-protection guarantee implicit in the Fifth Amendment.
3. The Court could not extend § 1409(c)'s favorable one-year physical-presence exception to unwed citizen fathers because doing so would displace Congress's general rule. Instead, the general physical-presence requirement applied prospectively to children born to unwed U.S.-citizen mothers until Congress enacted a uniform rule.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Morales-Santana had third-party standing to assert his deceased father's equal-protection rights.
2. Whether 8 U.S.C. §§ 1401(a)(7) and 1409(a), (c), which imposed a longer physical-presence requirement on unwed U.S.-citizen fathers than on unwed U.S.-citizen mothers, violated the equal-protection guarantee implicit in the Fifth Amendment.
3. What remedy was appropriate for the unconstitutional gender-based distinction.
4. Whether the shorter physical-presence requirement applicable to unwed U.S.-citizen mothers should be extended to unwed fathers or instead be withdrawn prospectively.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded