Kerry v. Din

Kerry v. Din
Docket number: 13-1402
Court: United States Supreme Court
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Antonin Scalia • Anthony M. Kennedy • Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg • Steven G. Breyer Samuel Alito • Sonia Sotomayor • Elena Kagan

Kerry v. Din is a United States Supreme Court case that was decided on June 15, 2015. The case concerned visa application denials by consular officers and whether the federal government violated the Due process clause of the United States Constitution when it failed to explain its denial of a U.S. citizen's husband's visa application after citing a provision of immigration law—8 U. S. C. § 1182(a)(3)(B)—forbidding entry of people the consular officer suspect to generally be involved in terrorist activity, without identifying the activity in question. Click here to learn more about the case background.

On June 15, 2015, in a 5-4 ruling SCOTUS vacated the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruling and remanded the case for further proceedings, holding that the U.S. government did not violate Respondent Fauzia Din's constitutional rights, specifically her right to due process, by issuing its general denial of her husband's visa application. The plurality opinion was written by Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas. Justices Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito concurred in the judgment. Justice Stephen Breyer dissented, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Click here to learn more about the outcome of the case.

Background

Fauzia Din, a United States citizen, married Kanishka Berashk, a citizen and resident of Afghanistan. Berashk was a civil servant in Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.

Din filed a visa petition with the U.S. State Department on behalf of her husband in order to have him classified as an immediate relative of hers, making him eligible for priority immigration to the United States. The petition was approved and Berashk then filed a full visa application. After reviewing the application and an interview with Berashk, a consular officer at the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan denied the application, citing the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. The officer decided that Berashk was ineligible for entry into the country and claimed this was due to his connections to terrorist organizations—prohibited under the INA—without providing proof of such connections or activities, or a detailed explanation of their findings.

Din requested a detailed explanation from the consulate. These attempts were unsuccessful, and thus she sued the government in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California for violating her due process rights, naming then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry as the defendant in his official capacity. Specifically, Din argued that the government "deprived her of her constitutional right to live in the United States with her spouse" and denied her due process by failing to provide a detailed explanation for the rejection of the visa application.

The district court dismissed the case, holding that Din did not have standing to sue. On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court judgment, holding that living with her spouse in the United States was a protected right that entitled Din to a detailed explanation.

The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari in the case on October 2, 2014, adding it to its merits docket to hear argument and issue a ruling.

Questions presented

The court limited oral arguments to the following questions: “ *Whether a consular officer's refusal of a visa to a U.S. citizen's alien spouse impinges upon a constitutionally protected interest of the citizen. Whether respondent is entitled to challenge in court the refusal of a visa to her husband and to require the government, in order to sustain the refusal, to identify a specific statutory provision rendering him inadmissible and to allege what it believes he did that would render him ineligible for a visa. ”

Oral argument

Oral argument in the case was held on February 23, 2015.

Outcome

Justice Antonin Scalia

Chief Justice John Roberts

Justice Anthony Kennedy

Justice Clarence Thomas

Justice Samuel Alito

On June 15, 2015, in a 5-4 ruling SCOTUS vacated the Ninth Circuit ruling and remanded the case for further proceedings, holding that the U.S. government did not violate Respondent Fauzia Din's right to due process. The plurality opinion was written by Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas. Justices Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito concurred in the judgment. Justice Stephen Breyer dissented, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.

Opinion

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the Court's plurality opinion:

“	Fauzia Din is a citizen and resident of the United States. Her husband, Kanishka Berashk, is an Afghan citizen and former civil servant in the Taliban regime who resides in that country. When the Government declined to issue an immigrant visa to Berashk, Din sued. The state action of which Din complains is the denial of Berashk's visa application. Naturally, one would expect him—not Din—to bring this suit. But because Berashk is an unadmitted and nonresident alien, he has no right of entry into the United States, and no cause of action to press in furtherance of his claim for admission. See Kleindienst v.Mandel, 408 U. S. 753, 762 (1972). So, Din attempts to bring suit on his behalf, alleging that the Government's denial of her husband's visa application violated her constitutional rights. See App. 36–37, Complaint ¶56. In particular, she claims that the Government denied her due process of lawwhen, without adequate explanation of the reason for the visa denial, it deprived her of her constitutional right to live in the United States with her spouse. There is no such constitutional right. What Justice Breyer 's dissent strangely describes as a “deprivation of her freedom to live together with her spouse in America,” post, at 110, is, in any world other than the artificial world of ever-expanding constitutional rights, nothing more than a deprivation of her spouse's freedom to immigrate into America. For the reasons given in this opinion and in the opinion concurring in the judgment, we vacate and remand.	”
—Justice Antonin Scalia

Concurring opinion

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment, joined by Justice Samuel Alito. In his opinion, Justice Kennedy wrote:

“	The respondent, Fauzia Din, is a citizen and resident of the United States. She asserts that petitioner Government officials (collectively, Government) violated her own constitutional right to live in this country with her husband, an alien now residing in Afghanistan. She contends this violation occurred when the Government, through State Department consular officials, denied her spouse’s immigrant visa application with no explanation other than that the denial was based on 8 U. S. C. §1182(a)(3)(B), the statutory provision prohibiting the issuance of visas to persons who engage in terrorist activities. The plurality is correct that the case must be vacated and remanded. But rather than deciding, as the plurality does, whether Din has a protected liberty interest, my view is that, even assuming she does, the notice she received regarding her husband’s visa denial satisfied due process. Today’s disposition should not be interpreted as deciding whether a citizen has a protected liberty interest in the visa application of her alien spouse. The Court need not decide that issue, for this Court’s precedents instruct that, even assuming she has such an interest, the Government satisfied due process when it notified Din’s husband that his visa was denied under the immigration statute’s terrorism bar, §1182(a)(3)(B). See ante, at 2.	”
—Justice Anthony Kennedy

Dissenting opinion

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Justice Stephen Breyer

Justice Sonia Sotomayor

Justice Elena Kagan

The dissent was written by Justice Stephen Breyer, who was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. In his dissent, Justice Breyer wrote:

“	Fauzia Din, an American citizen, wants to know why the State Department denied a visa to her husband, a noncitizen. She points out that, without a visa, she and her husband will have to spend their married lives separately or abroad. And she argues that the Department, in refusing to provide an adequate reason for the denial, has violated the constitutional requirement that “[n]o person . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” U. S. Const., Amdt. 5. In my view, Ms. Din should prevail on this constitutional claim. She possesses the kind of “liberty” interest to which the Due Process Clause grants procedural protection. And the Government has failed to provide her with the procedure that is constitutionally “due.” See Swarthout v. Cooke, 562 U. S. 216, 219 (2011) (per curiam) (setting forth the Court’s two-step inquiry for procedural due process claims). Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the Ninth Circuit.	”
—Justice Stephen Breyer

See also

• 

  Immigration in the U.S.

• 

  Visa

• 

  U.S. Customs and Border Protection

External links

• Search Google News for this topic
• Oyez case file for Kerry v. Din (2015)
• SCOTUSblog case file for Kerry v. Din (2015)
• Petition for a writ of certiorari in Kerry v. Din (2015)
• U.S. Supreme Court Volume 576 (2014 Term)
• 8 U.S. Code § 1182 - Inadmissible aliens

Footnotes

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