Supreme Court Considers Visa Case For Foreign Spouses

[Beachey]

The plaintiff lost 5-4. The attached article discusses the decision more in the context of the larger issue of same-sex marriage but the short answer is the plaintiff did receive due process even if not a full answer. Sucks.

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/antonin-scalia-and-the-limits-of-marriage/396137/

[tsap seui]

Sad.

[summerlove]

Looks like even though it was a defeat, it wasn't a crushing legal defeat, as the Supreme Court did not go so far as to say consular decisions are 100% unreviewable:

 

http://lawandborder.com/supreme-court-consulate-need-not-tell-u-s-citizen-why-husbands-visa-denied/

[summerlove]

I saw the following relevant quote:

 

"The Supreme Court held that because Berashk is not a U.S. citizen, he did not have the right to get a court review, and his U.S. citizen wife also did not have a due-process right to get the visa denial challenged in a federal court.

Steven Yale-Loehr, a law professor at Cornell University, said the Supreme Court’s decision on this case has a much broader impact on immigration to the U.S.

“If a U.S. citizen marries a Chinese citizen in China and tries to petition through the green-card process to have the foreign spouse come over to the United States, and if the U.S. (consulate) in Guangzhou were to deny the visa because the foreign spouse is a former member of the Communist Party, or they allege maybe the Chinese citizen committed some crimes in the past even though it is unproven, that would not be reviewable in the U.S. court,” Yale-Loehr said."

[Beachey]

Long but a good analysis.

http://www.scottimmigration.net/content/what-law-following-kerry-v-din

[Randy W]

Long but a good analysis.

http://www.scottimmigration.net/content/what-law-following-kerry-v-din

 

 

It seems like the case might have turned out differently if it had not been so obviously connected to the "national security" clause - but those clauses - national security and criminality leave a fairly large door for the Consulate to hide behind.

 

Same old same old, I'm afraid.

 

Thanks for reporting back.

[tsap seui]

National security, homeland security....they bluster us with those no meaning words and play it all like a shell game. Are any rational adults actually in Charge? They spend their efforts slowing down innocent folks trying to immigrate, meanwhile they let people they had on their radar screens fly planes into buildings. The cub scouts could do a more fair and better job...the cub scouts at least have adults in charge.

 

Then again, who ya gonna fire? It's the government.

 

God Bless the hapless folks in waiting who've been stepped on by the big clumsy foot of "security", homeland, national, who cares, they'll come up with a new name to fool us with once those two are worn out. Like the governor said to his crew in Blazing Saddles...."pass these out to the boys, let's play with these paddle balls, we've got to do something to justify our phoney baloney jobs to the voters". Yeehawww, let's make Amurica safe boys, we kin start some more wars, and we kin keep them pesky Chinar women from imma-gratin' likey they wuz human beings.

 

Dang, I feel much better now.