Department of State v. Munoz
The Supreme Court ruled that American citizens do not have a fundamental constitutional right to have their noncitizen spouse admitted to the United States, overturning a Ninth Circuit decision that had required the government to justify such denials in court.
The ruling resolves a long-standing divide among federal appeals courts and means that visa denials separating married couples — even those who lived together in the United States for years — are largely shielded from judicial review, with no guaranteed constitutional right to an explanation.
How it got here: The federal district court granted summary judgment to the State Department; the Ninth Circuit vacated that ruling, finding Muñoz had a constitutional liberty interest; the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case to resolve a circuit split.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Sandra Muñoz, an American citizen and workers' rights lawyer from Los Angeles, married Luis Asencio-Cordero, a Salvadoran citizen, in 2010. After living together in the United States, Asencio-Cordero had to return to El Salvador to apply for a visa. A consular officer denied the application in December 2015, citing a provision covering people believed to plan unlawful activity, without disclosing why — though it later emerged the officer believed Asencio-Cordero was affiliated with the gang MS-13, based partly on his tattoos. Asencio-Cordero has no criminal record in either country.
The question before the Court
Does an American citizen have a constitutional right that would allow courts to review the government's decision to deny her noncitizen spouse a visa — and to demand an explanation for that denial?
The Court's answer
No — the Court held that American citizens do not have a fundamental constitutional right to have their noncitizen spouse admitted to the United States. Because no such right exists, the State Department's denial of Asencio-Cordero's visa did not violate Muñoz's constitutional rights, and courts had no authority to second-guess the consular officer's decision under the doctrine of consular nonreviewability.
The Court applied its standard test for rights not written into the Constitution, which requires showing the claimed right is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition." While the right to marry is well established, what Muñoz actually claimed was something distinct: the right to have her foreign husband admitted to — and allowed to remain in — the United States. American history shows the opposite tradition — Congress has always treated the admission of noncitizens, including spouses of citizens, as a matter of government grace rather than constitutional right. The Court also ruled that the Constitution does not give citizens procedural rights in a visa proceeding that formally belongs to their spouse.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Americans married to foreign nationals cannot invoke the Constitution to demand that courts review a visa denial or compel the government to explain its reasoning in detail. Families in which the noncitizen spouse entered without authorization and must travel abroad to apply for a visa face the steepest stakes — a denial can mean indefinite separation with no meaningful legal recourse.
What changes now
The case is sent back to the lower courts for further proceedings consistent with the ruling — but because the Court held that Muñoz has no constitutional interest in her husband's visa proceeding, the practical effect is that the State Department's denial stands and is insulated from judicial review. Asencio-Cordero may reapply for a visa, and the government has already disclosed that its denial was based on a belief he is affiliated with MS-13 — information Muñoz can use in any future application.
What this does not decide
The ruling does not eliminate or weaken the constitutional right to marry — that right remains firmly in place. The Court decided only that the right to marry does not extend to a constitutional right to have a foreign-national spouse admitted to the country. Congress could still grant broader statutory protections to such families, and the ruling does not address visa denials in which the government offers no reason whatsoever.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Gorsuch
Justice Gorsuch agreed with reversing the Ninth Circuit but would have done so on narrow, non-constitutional grounds. He noted that through the litigation the government had already provided Muñoz with the factual basis she sought — meaning there was nothing left for a court to resolve. He would have reversed without deciding whether Muñoz had any constitutional rights in her husband's visa proceeding, arguing the constitutional questions had become practically irrelevant.
Dissent — Justice Sotomayor
Justice Sotomayor argued that barring a citizen's spouse from the country plainly burdens the well-established fundamental right to marriage, and that under the Court's existing framework from Kleindienst v. Mandel, the remedy is simply a 'facially legitimate and bona fide reason' — a low bar the government ultimately met here. She would have resolved the case on those narrow grounds, and criticized the majority for unnecessarily issuing a broad ruling that, in her view, strips marriage rights from the immigration context and paves the way for arbitrary visa denials with no accountability.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- Federal courts generally cannot review a consular officer's decision to deny a visa — a judge-made rule called consular nonreviewability. The Court has assumed a narrow exception when a denial burdens the constitutional rights of a U.S. citizen, but that exception only opens a courthouse door if the citizen actually has a protected constitutional interest at stake.
- To determine whether Muñoz had such an interest, the Court applied the Glucksberg two-step test — the framework for identifying rights not listed in the Constitution. Step one requires a careful, precise description of the right being claimed. Step two asks whether that exact right is 'deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition.'
- The Court identified Muñoz's claimed right carefully: not simply the right to marry (which the government never disputed), but specifically the right to have her foreign-national husband admitted to — and allowed to remain in — the United States. That is meaningfully different from the right to marriage itself and involves an entitlement to have the government admit a noncitizen.
- On the historical record, the Court found the opposite of a rooted tradition supporting that right. From the founding, admission of foreigners was described as 'of favor, not of right.' Every major wave of federal immigration legislation — beginning in the late 19th century — imposed restrictions without exemptions for citizens' spouses. While Congress has sometimes extended special treatment to spouses, it has never made spousal admission a constitutional requirement.
- The Court also rejected Muñoz's separate argument that she had at least a procedural due process right to participate in — and demand an explanation from — her husband's visa proceeding. The Constitution generally does not confer procedural rights on citizens in proceedings that formally belong to someone else. Muñoz's harm from her husband's exclusion is real but indirect, and prior rulings establish that indirect harm alone does not create a constitutional right to be heard in another person's proceeding.
- The Court further held that its earlier ruling in Kleindienst v. Mandel — which said a 'facially legitimate and bona fide reason' for a visa denial could satisfy any citizen-rights concern — did not support Muñoz's theory. Mandel addressed professors' First Amendment right to hear a foreign scholar speak, not a procedural due process right to participate in or challenge someone else's visa process.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Kerry v. Din (576 U.S. 86)
The Court adopted the Din plurality's conclusion that citizens have no fundamental right to bring a noncitizen spouse into the country, resolving the question Din left open.
Reaffirms United States ex rel. Knauff v. Shaughnessy (338 U.S. 537)
The Court reaffirmed that the government's power to exclude noncitizens — including spouses — is final and beyond judicial interference.
Distinguishes Kleindienst v. Mandel (408 U.S. 753)
The Court held Mandel's 'facially legitimate and bona fide reason' standard addressed First Amendment claims, not a citizen's procedural due process rights in a spouse's visa proceeding.