Today at the Supreme Court: Live blog of orders and opinions - June 12, 2017

[mahatmakanejeeves]

"Today's first opinion is from Neil Gorsuch, his first."

Live blog of orders and opinions | June 12, 2017

There are no articles yet at the AP Twitter feed or Google News. If something remarkable happens, it will show up there soon enough.

[missingthebigdog]

1. Something kind of remarkable happened.

Mr. Morales-Santana is challenging his deportation. He was born abroad, but raised in the US. His father was an american citizen, his mother was not.

Under the law, a child born abroad is considered an american citizen if his or her mother was an american citizen who lived in the united states for at least ONE year at any time prior to the child's birth OR his or her father was an american citizen who lived in the United States for at least FIVE years at any time prior to the child's birth. Mr. Morales-Santana's father lived in the US for four years and seven months.

The Court correctly held that this different treatment of men and women violated the equal protection clause. Unfortunately, they went on to adopt the more restrictive standard instead of the more generous one:

Extension here would render the special treatment Congress prescribed in
§1409(c), the one-year physical-presence requirement for
U. S.-citizen mothers, the general rule, no longer an exception.
Section 1401(a)(7)’s longer physical-presence requirement,
applicable to a substantial majority of children
born abroad to one U. S.-citizen parent and one foreign citizen
parent, therefore, must hold sway.29 Going forward,
Congress may address the issue and settle on a
uniform prescription that neither favors nor disadvantages
any person on the basis of gender. In the interim,
as the Government suggests, §1401(a)(7)’s now-five year
requirement should apply, prospectively, to children
born to unwed U. S.-citizen mothers.

This seems to mean that Mr. Morales-Santana won the battle but lost the war. The standard will now be five years for fathers and mothers.