Sessions v. Morales-Santana, 582 U.S. ___, 137 S. Ct. 1678 (U.S. 2017)
Sessions v. Morales-Santana is a landmark equal protection case at the intersection of constitutional law and immigration/citizenship.
Do the different physical-presence requirements for transmitting U.S. citizenship to a foreign-born child of unwed U.S.-citizen parents—more lenient for mothers than for fathers—violate the equal protection guarantee incorporated in the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause, and if so, what is the proper remedy?
Sex-based classifications by the federal government are subject to intermediate scrutiny under the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment and must be supported by an exceedingly persuasive justification: the classification must serve important governmental objectives and be substantially related to the achievement of those objectives. Laws may not rest on overbroad generalizations or archaic stereotypes about the roles of men and women. When a statute violates equal protection by conferring a benefit unequally, courts must fashion a remedy consistent with congressional intent, which may involve either extending the benefit (leveling up) or withdrawing it (leveling down), guided by severability and legislative preference. See, e.g., United States v. Virginia; Heckler v. Mathews; Bolling v. Sharpe.
Yes. The statutory scheme that imposed a more lenient one-year physical-presence requirement on unwed U.S.-citizen mothers than on unwed U.S.-citizen fathers violates equal protection. As a remedy, the Court declined to extend the favorable rule; instead, it applied the longer, general physical-presence requirement to children of unwed U.S.-citizen mothers prospectively, pending congressional action. Because Morales-Santana's father did not satisfy the longer requirement, Morales-Santana did not acquire U.S. citizenship at birth.
Sessions v. Morales-Santana is significant for at least three reasons. First, it strengthens modern equal protection doctrine by invalidating a sex-based classification embedded in nationality law and reaffirming that gender lines must be justified by more than convenience or stereotype. Second, it carefully distinguishes permissible sex-based differences tied to biological or evidentiary realities (Nguyen) from impermissible differences that confer or withhold substantive benefits. Third, it is a leading illustration of remedial choice in equal protection: courts may level down when legislative intent suggests that uniform restriction better reflects Congress's design. For students of constitutional and immigration law, the case underscores both the limits of judicial power to confer citizenship and the principle that equal protection applies with full force to the federal government's citizenship rules.