Devout Tattoo Catholic Hubby Denied Visa

US citizens with visions of bringing home from overseas noncitizen spouses may be shocked to be told they don’t have a constitutional right to do so via a spousal visa. They shouldn’t be, said a 6-3 Supreme Court majority.

The WSJ coverage noted how a California woman sued the State Department claiming her rights were violated because she couldn’t get her Salvadoran husband back into the country after his visa application had been denied “without explanation.” The couple had been married in 2010 while the Salvadoran citizen was living in LA without green card authorization and even had a child. They tried getting a spousal visa for him in 2015, but that meant travelling from LA to El Salvador for an interview … and there he’s stayed stuck without wife or child. The State Department denied him a visa under a statute that allows the US to turn away applicants who could be engaged in illegal activity & no further explanation need be given. After years of litigation, however, the government did concede its consular office suspected the husband was a gang member because of his tattoos. The husband’s retort: His tattoos are “expressive of his intellectualism & deeply-held Catholic faith.”

As it happens, the liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals eventually ruled the separated wife & husband “possessed a liberty interest” in the visa application & the government at least owed an explanation for denying it. Even the Biden DOJ did not buy that argument & appealed to the High Court. Writing for the majority, Justice Barrett said the dissenters can’t just make up the law and/or find rights hidden in their view of logic: “This is an area in which more than family unity is at play: Other issues, including national security & foreign policy, matter too.” In dissent, the court’s 3 liberal justices argued the government should be required to explain its reasoning & implied that “bad” explanations may then be a violation of Due Process. Even the poor & same-sex couples’ problems were left unaddressed by the majority ruling, they said. As Justice Barrett reminded, however, those issues are for Congress, not the court to solve.

Davd Soul