Department of State v. Munoz
The Supreme Court ruled that a U.S. citizen has no fundamental constitutional right to have her noncitizen spouse admitted to the country, meaning the government is not constitutionally required to explain why it denied the spouse a visa.
The decision reinforces the government's sweeping authority over visa decisions and sharply limits courts' ability to step in when consular officers turn away the foreign-born spouses of American citizens.
“Today, we resolve the open question. Like the Din plurality, we hold that a citizen does not have a fundamental liberty interest in her noncitizen spouse being admitted to the country.”
The Court's core holding, resolving a longstanding split among federal appeals courts.
How it got here: The District Court granted summary judgment for the State Department; the Ninth Circuit vacated that ruling, holding Muñoz had a constitutional liberty interest; the Supreme Court granted the government's petition to hear the case.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Sandra Muñoz, a U.S. citizen and workers' rights lawyer, married Luis Asencio-Cordero, a Salvadoran citizen, in 2010. After years together in California, Asencio-Cordero had to travel to El Salvador for a consular visa interview. In 2015, a consular officer denied his application, citing a provision about "unlawful activity" without further explanation. The government later revealed it believed, based partly on his tattoos, that he was a member of the MS-13 gang — a finding he denied. Muñoz sued, arguing the government violated her constitutional right to live with her spouse by giving no meaningful reason for the denial.
The question before the Court
Does a U.S. citizen have a constitutional right — protected by the Due Process Clause — to demand a reason when the government denies her noncitizen spouse a visa to enter the country?
The Court's answer
No — the Court held that a U.S. citizen does not have a fundamental constitutional right to have her noncitizen spouse admitted to the country. To qualify as a protected "fundamental right" under the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause, a right must be carefully described and shown to be "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition." The Court found that Muñoz's claimed right — to live with her noncitizen husband inside the United States — fails that test. American history shows instead a long, unbroken tradition of the government's sovereign authority to admit or exclude noncitizens, with no recognized carve-out for spouses.
Because no fundamental right was at stake, Muñoz could not use the Due Process Clause to demand procedural protections in her husband's visa proceeding. Without a constitutional right to assert, she cannot pierce the doctrine of consular nonreviewability — the legal rule that courts generally cannot second-guess executive officers' visa decisions — and the State Department had no constitutional obligation to explain why her husband was denied a visa.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
American citizens married to foreign nationals cannot use the Constitution's due process guarantee to demand a reason — or a court hearing — when the government denies their spouse a visa. Mixed-citizenship couples who must go through overseas consular processing face essentially unreviewable denials, with no constitutional floor requiring even a brief explanation of why the spouse was turned away.
What changes now
The case is sent back to the lower courts for further proceedings consistent with the Supreme Court's ruling. In practical terms, the State Department's visa denial of Asencio-Cordero stands, and the courts cannot review the merits of that decision. Muñoz may reapply for her husband's admission, armed with the factual basis for the prior denial that emerged during litigation, but there is no court order requiring the government to reconsider.
What this does not decide
The ruling does not limit the long-recognized constitutional right to marry. The Court held only that this right does not include a constitutional entitlement to have a noncitizen spouse admitted to the United States. It does not address whether citizens could challenge visa denials on other constitutional grounds, or what Congress could require by statute.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Gorsuch
Justice Gorsuch agreed that the Ninth Circuit's decision should be reversed, but would not have reached the constitutional question about the right to marriage. In his view, the case was effectively over because the government had already disclosed the factual basis for its visa denial during litigation and offered Muñoz a chance to reapply. With nothing left to litigate, the Court should have reversed on that narrow ground without deciding whether citizens hold a fundamental right to have a noncitizen spouse admitted.
Dissent — Justice Sotomayor
Justice Sotomayor argued that the government's exclusion of Muñoz's husband directly burdened her well-established fundamental right to marry. Under the Court's existing precedent in Kleindienst v. Mandel, the remedy is modest — the government need only provide a 'facially legitimate and bona fide reason' for the exclusion. Because the government eventually gave that reason (suspected MS-13 membership), the majority could have resolved the case on those narrow procedural grounds. Instead, the dissent charged, the majority unnecessarily eliminated marriage as a constitutional consideration in the immigration context, leaving American citizens with no constitutional protection at all when their spouses are banished — a result that falls hardest on same-sex couples and others who cannot simply relocate abroad.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- Under the doctrine of consular nonreviewability — the rule that courts generally cannot second-guess an executive officer's decision to deny a visa — such decisions are final and unreviewable. The Court has assumed a narrow exception when a denial 'allegedly burdens the constitutional rights of a U.S. citizen,' in which case courts may ask whether the executive gave a 'facially legitimate and bona fide reason.' Because only Muñoz, as a citizen, can invoke this exception (her husband has no constitutional right to enter), she must show her own fundamental rights were violated.
- The Court applied the two-part Washington v. Glucksberg (1997) test for identifying unenumerated fundamental rights — rights not spelled out in the Constitution. Step one requires a careful, specific description of the right claimed. Step two requires showing that right is 'objectively, deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition.'
- At step one, the Court rejected Muñoz's framing of a general 'fundamental right to marriage' as too broad. What she actually claimed was something more specific: the right to live with her noncitizen husband in the United States — which necessarily includes the right to have him admitted and remain in the country. That precise right is what the Court evaluated.
- At step two, the Court found this specific right is not deeply rooted in American history. From the nation's founding, admitting noncitizens was treated as a matter of government favor, not entitlement. Congressional immigration laws from the late 19th century onward applied admissibility bars to noncitizen spouses without exception, and courts consistently declined to review those decisions — including in cases involving spouses of U.S. citizens and veterans.
- Because Muñoz could not clear step two of Glucksberg, she could not establish a fundamental right that would trigger any constitutional obligation by the government. The Court noted that while Congress has often shown generosity to spouses in immigration law, it has never made spousal immigration a matter of constitutional right.
- The Court also rejected Muñoz's fallback procedural due process argument. The Constitution does not ordinarily give people the right to participate in — or demand process in — someone else's legal proceeding based on harm they indirectly suffer from the outcome. Muñoz suffered real harm from her husband's visa denial, but that harm does not translate into a constitutional right to process in his consular proceeding.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Kerry v. Din (576 U. S. 86)
The majority adopts as a binding holding what only a plurality said in Din: citizens have no fundamental right to a noncitizen spouse's admission.
Limits Kleindienst v. Mandel (408 U. S. 753)
Mandel's 'facially legitimate and bona fide reason' standard does not give citizens procedural due process rights in a noncitizen's visa proceeding.
Reaffirms United States ex rel. Knauff v. Shaughnessy (338 U. S. 537)
Reaffirmed as good law for the proposition that courts cannot limit the government's power to exclude noncitizens, even spouses.