Before you marry a US citizen, read the latest US Supreme Court ruling

On Friday, the US Supreme Court decided against the constitutional rights of American residents to file a lawsuit against the refusal of their foreign spouses’ visas.

According to Reuters, the ruling means that US residents’ constitutional rights are not infringed when the government forbids their non-citizen wives from entering the nation without cause.

The court revealed this in a 6-3 decision in the Department of State v. Sandra Munoz case (US Supreme Court, No. 23-334).

Munoz, a civil rights attorney and citizen of the United States, is unable to contest the Department of State’s decision to deny her husband’s visa application from El Salvador since the department took three years to explain their suspicions that he was a gang member.

According to court documents, Munoz and her spouse, whom she married in 2010 and had a child with, have divorced since 2015.

In the past, US visa denials have not been subject to legal review unless the government breaches the applicant’s constitutional rights during the process.

On Friday, Munoz filed a petition alleging that the delay in explaining the refusal violated her fundamental right to marriage, but the Supreme Court denied her claim.

Her claim “involves more than marriage and more than spousal cohabitation — it includes the right to have her non-citizen husband enter (and remain in) the United States,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the court.

The decision overturns a 2022 ruling by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, located in San Francisco, which brought Munoz’s claim against the State Department back to life.

The decision was applauded by the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a conservative organisation that supported the State Department in a brief it filed.

“To hold for this couple would let those Americans who choose to marry dangerous aliens force their choice on the rest of us,” Dale Wilcox, the group’s executive director and general counsel, said in a statement.

A dissenting opinion on the subject was rendered by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined.

“There is no question that excluding a citizen’s spouse burdens her right to marriage, and that burden requires the Government to provide at least a factual basis for its decision”, Sotomayor wrote.

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