I heard this last week but this is the first detailed description of the *OTHER* Supreme Court marriage decision: Kerry v. Din, to do with Americans wanting to marry non-citizens and bring them to the U.S. This is the heart-crushing decision that didn't have much light shone on it.

The case, Kerry v. Din, involves an American citizen, Fauzia Din, who married an Afghani man, Kanishka Berashk. Din petitioned for a visa for Berashk, but the consular officer in Pakistan denied it, citing supposed "terrorist activities." However, the officer provided no proof or other explanation. (Berashk was a payroll clerk in the Afghan government before the U.S. invasion, but even this wasn't cited.)

Without question, the government can deny an American the right to be with his or her spouse if the spouse is a criminal, American or not. But the questions here are 1) whether the government should have to provide proof, or at least state the specific reason, for denying an American the right to be with his or her spouse; and 2) whether a denial without explanation is subject to judicial review.

Din appealed the consular decision, arguing she was denied her rights without the due process guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. The U.S. district court threw out her claim, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found she "has a protected liberty interest in marriage that entitled her to review of the denial of her spouse's visa."

Before the Supreme Court, the Obama administration argued that the U.S. government has absolute power to exclude spouses of American citizens for any reason and that no judicial review or due process should be available to those affected by even erroneous decisions of consular officers.

Shocked by this argument, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer asked Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler to imagine that Din had "undeniable proof" that the consular officer rejected the application for racial reasons or to suppress free speech: "Is your position that it doesn't matter?"
Kneedler responded only by repeating, "There is no judicial review."

The court's ruling, delivered by Justice Antonin Scalia and joined by four other justices, is nothing less than an overview of the ways in which immigration restrictions have been used to trample on the rights of married couples. "As soon as Congress began legislating in this area, it enacted a complicated web of regulations that enacted serious impediments to a person's ability to bring a spouse to the United States," Scalia wrote.

read the rest on the site.

This story has a libertarian spin, so there may be other versions interpreting the decision out there, but the bottom line is that there is still no recourse for spouses if the consular staff says "no."