Fiallo Ex Rel. Rodriguez v. Bell

430 U.S. 787, 97 S. Ct. 1473, 52 L. Ed. 2d 50, 1977 U.S. LEXIS 78

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: April 26, 1977
• Docket: 75-6297
• Status: Published

Opinions

Mr. Justice Powell

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case brings before us a constitutional challenge to §§ 101 (b) (1) (D) and 101 (b) (2) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (Act), 66 Stat. 182, as amended, 8 U. S. C. §§ 1101 (b) (1) (D) and 1101 (b) (2).

I

The Act grants special preference immigration status to aliens who qualify as the “children” or “parents” of United States citizens or lawful permanent residents. Under § 101 (b) (1), a “child” is defined as an unmarried person under 21 years of age who is a legitimate or legitimated child, a stepchild, an adopted child, or an illegitimate child seeking preference by virtue of his relationship with his natural mother.¹ The definition does not extend to an illegitimate child seeking preference by virtue of his relationship with his natural father. Moreover, under § 101 (b) (2), a person qualifies as a “parent” for purposes of the Act solely on the basis of the person’s relationship with a “child.” As a result, the natural father of an illegitimate child who is either a United States citizen or permanent resident alien is not entitled to preferential treatment as a “parent.”

The special preference immigration status provided for those who satisfy the statutory “parent-child” relationship depends on whether the immigrant’s relative is a United States citizen or permanent resident alien. A United States citizen is allowed the entry of his “parent” or “child” without regard to either an applicable numerical quota or the labor certification requirement. 8 U. S. C. §§ 1151 (a), (b), 1182 (a) (14). On the other hand, a United States permanent resident alien is allowed the entry of the “parent” or “child” subject to numerical limitations but without regard to the labor certification requirement. 8 U. S. C. § 1182 (a) (14); see 1 C. Gordon & H. Rosenfield, Immigration Law and Procedure § 2.40 n. 18 (rev. ed. 1975).²

Appellants are three sets of unwed natural fathers and their illegitimate offspring who sought, either as an alien father or an alien child, a special immigration preference by virtue of a relationship to a citizen or resident alien child or parent. In each instance the applicant was informed that he was ineligible for an immigrant visa unless he qualified for admission under the general numerical limitations and, in the case of the alien parents, received the requisite labor certification.³

Appellants filed this action in July 1974 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York challenging the constitutionality of §§ 101 (b)(1) and 101 (b) (2) of the Act under the First, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments. Appellants alleged that the statutory provisions (i) denied them equal protection by discriminating against natural fathers and their illegitimate children “on the basis of the father’s marital status, the illegitimacy of the child and the sex of the parent without either compelling or rational justification”; (ii) denied them due process of law to the extent that there was established “an unwarranted conclusive presumption of the absence of strong psychological and economic ties between natural fathers and their children born out of wedlock and not legitimated”; and (iii) “seriously burden[ed] and infringe [d] upon the rights of natural fathers and their children, born out of wedlock and not legitimated, to mutual association, to privacy, to establish a home, to raise natural children and to be raised by the natural father.” App. 11-12. Appellants sought to enjoin permanently enforcement of the challenged statutory provisions to the extent that the statute precluded them from qualifying for the special preference accorded other “parents” and “children.”

A three-judge District Court was convened to consider the constitutional issues. After noting that Congress’ power to fashion rules for the admission of aliens was “exceptionally broad,” the District Court held, with one judge dissenting, that the statutory provisions at issue were neither “wholly devoid of any conceivable rational purpose” nor “fundamentally aimed at achieving a goal unrelated to the regulation of immigration.” Fiallo v. Levi, 406 F. Supp. 162, 165, 166 (1975). The court therefore granted judgment for the Government and dismissed the action.

We noted probable jurisdiction sub nom. Fiallo v. Levi, 426 U. S. 919 (1976), and for the reasons set forth below we affirm.

II

At the outset, it is important to underscore the limited scope of judicial inquiry into immigration legislation. This Court has repeatedly emphasized that “over no conceivable subject is the legislative power of Congress more complete than it is over” the admission of aliens. Oceanic Navigation Co. v. Stranahan, 214 U. S. 320, 339 (1909); accord, Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U. S. 753, 766 (1972). Our cases “have long recognized the power to expel or exclude aliens as a fundamental sovereign attribute exercised by the Government's political departments largely immune from judicial control.” Shaughnessy v. Mezei, 345 U. S. 206, 210 (1953); see, e. g., Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U. S. 580 (1952); Lem Moon Sing v. United States, 158 U. S. 538 (1895); Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U. S. 698 (1893); The Chinese Exclusion Case, 130 U. S. 581 (1889). Our recent decisions have not departed from this long-established rule. Just last Term, for example, the Court had occasion to note that “the power over aliens is of a political character and therefore subject only to narrow judicial review.” Hampton v. Mow Sun Wong, 426 U. S. 88, 101 n. 21 (1976), citing Fong Yue Ting v. United States, supra, at 713; accord, Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U. S. 67, 81-82 (1976). And we observed recently that in the exercise of its broad power over immigration and naturalization, “Congress regularly makes rules that would be unacceptable if applied to citizens.” Id., at 80.⁴

Appellants apparently do not challenge the need for special judicial deference to congressional policy choices in the immigration context,⁵ but instead suggest that a “unique coalescing of factors” makes the instant case sufficiently unlike prior immigration cases to warrant more searching judicial scrutiny. Brief for Appellants 52-55. Appellants first observe that since the statutory provisions were designed to reunite families wherever possible, the purpose of the statute was to afford rights not to aliens but to United States citizens and legal permanent residents. Appellants then rely on our border-search decisions in Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U. S. 266 (1973), and United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873 (1975), for the proposition that the courts must scrutinize congressional legislation in the immigration area to protect against violations of the rights of citizens. At issue in the border-search cases, however, was the nature of the protections mandated by the Fourth Amendment with respect to Government procedures designed to stem the illegal entry of aliens. Nothing in the opinions in those cases suggests that Congress has anything but exceptionally broad power to determine which classes of aliens may lawfully enter the country. See 413 U. S., at 272; 422 U. S., at 883-884.

Appellants suggest a second distinguishing factor. They argue that none of the prior immigration cases of this Court involved “double-barreled” discrimination based on sex and illegitimacy, infringed upon the due process rights of citizens and legal permanent residents, or implicated “the fundamental constitutional interests of United States citizens and permanent residents in a familial relationship.” Brief for Appellants 53-54; see id., at 16-18. But this Court has resolved similar challenges to immigration legislation based on other constitutional rights of citizens, and has rejected the suggestion that more searching judicial scrutiny is required. In Kleindienst v. Mandel, supra, for example, United States citizens challenged the power of the Attorney General to deny a visa to an alien who, as a proponent of “the economic, international, and governmental doctrines of World communism,” was ineligible to receive a visa under 8 U. S. C. § 1182 (a) (28) (D) absent a waiver by the Attorney General. The citizen-appellees in that case conceded that Congress could prohibit entry of all aliens falling into the class defined by § 1182 (a) (28) (D). They contended, however, that the Attorney General’s statutory discretion to approve a waiver was limited by the Constitution and that their First Amendment rights were abridged by the denial of Mandel’s request for a visa. The Court held that “when the Executive exercises this [delegated] power negatively on the basis of a facially legitimate and bona fide reason, the courts will neither look behind the exercise of that discretion, nor test it by balancing its justification against the First Amendment interests of those who seek personal communication with the applicant.” 408 U. S., at 770. We can see no reason to review the broad congressional policy choice at issue here under a more exacting standard than was applied in Kleindienst v. Mandel, a First Amendment case.⁶

Finally, appellants characterize our prior immigration cases as involving foreign policy matters and congressional choices to exclude or expel groups of aliens that were “specifically and clearly perceived to pose a grave threat to the national security,” citing Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U. S. 580 (1952), “or to the general welfare of this country,” citing Boutilier v. INS, 387 U. S. 118 (1967). Brief for Appellants 54. We find no indication in our prior cases that the scope of judicial review is a function of the nature of the policy choice at issue. To the contrary, “[s]ince decisions in these matters may implicate our relations with foreign powers, and since a wide variety of classifications must be defined in the light of changing political and economic circumstances, such decisions are frequently of a character more appropriate to either the Legislature or the Executive than to the Judiciary,” and “[t]he reasons that preclude judicial review of political questions also dictate a narrow standard of review of decisions made by the Congress or the President in the area of immigration and naturalization.” Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U. S., at 81-82. See Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, supra, at 588-589. As Mr. Justice Frankfurter observed in his concurrence in Harisiades v. Shaughnessy:

“The conditions of entry for every alien, the particular classes of aliens that shall be denied entry altogether, the basis for determining such classification, the right to terminate hospitality to aliens, the grounds on which such determination shall be based, have been recognized as matters solely for the responsibility of the Congress and wholly outside the power of this Court to control.” 342 U. S., at 596-597.

III

As originally enacted in 1952, §101 (b) (1) of the Act defined a “child” as an unmarried legitimate or legitimated child or stepchild under 21 years of age. The Board of Immigration Appeals and the Attorney General subsequently concluded that the failure of this definition to refer to illegitimate children rendered ineligible for preferential nonquota status both the illegitimate alien child of a citizen mother, Matter of A, 5 I. & N. Dec. 272, 283-284 (A. G. 1953), and the alien mother of a citizen born out of wedlock, Matter of F, 7 I. & N. Dec. 448 (B. I. A. 1957). The Attorney General recommended that the matter be brought to the attention of Congress, Matter of A, supra, at 284, and the Act was amended in 1957 to include what is now 8 U. S. C. § 1101 (b) (1) (D). See n. 1, supra. Congress was specifically concerned with the relationship between a child born out of wedlock and his or her natural mother, and the legislative history of the 1957 amendment reflects an intentional choice not to provide preferential immigration status by virtue of the relationship between an illegitimate child and his or her natural father.⁷

This distinction is just one of many drawn by Congress pursuant to its determination to provide some—but not all—families with relief from various immigration restrictions that would otherwise hinder reunification of the family in this country. In addition to the distinction at issue here, Congress has decided that children, whether legitimate or not, cannot qualify for preferential status if they are married or are over 21 years of age. 8 U. S. C. § 1101 (b) (1). Legitimated children are ineligible for preferential status unless their legitimation occurred prior to their 18th birthday and at a time when they were in the legal custody of the legitimating parent or parents. § 1101 (b) (1) (C). Adopted children are not entitled to preferential status unless they were adopted before the age of 14 and have thereafter lived in the custody of their adopting or adopted parents for at least two years, § 1101 (b) (1) (E). And stepchildren cannot qualify unless they were under 18 at the time of the marriage creating the stepchild relationship. § 1101 (b) (1) (B).

With respect to each of these legislative policy distinctions, it could be argued that the line should have been drawn at a different point and that the statutory definitions deny preferential status to parents and children who share strong family ties. Cf. Mathews v. Diaz, supra, at 83-84. But it is clear from our cases, see Part II, supra, that these are policy questions entrusted exclusively to the political branches of our Government, and we have no judicial authority to substitute our political judgment for that of the Congress.

Appellants suggest that the distinction drawn in § 101 (b) (1) (D) is unconstitutional under any standard of review since it infringes upon the constitutional rights of citizens and legal permanent residents without furthering legitimate governmental interests. Appellants note in this regard that the statute makes it more difficult for illegitimate children and their natural fathers to be reunited in this country than for legitimate or legitimated children and their parents, or for illegitimate children and their natural mothers. And appellants also note that the statute fails to establish a procedure under which illegitimate children and their natural fathers could prove the existence and strength of their family relationship. Those are admittedly the consequences of the congressional decision not to accord preferential status to this particular class of aliens, but the decision nonetheless remains one “solely for the responsibility of the Congress and wholly outside the power of this Court to control.” Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U. S., at 597 (Frankfurter, J., concurring). Congress obviously has determined that preferential status is not warranted for illegitimate children and their natural fathers, perhaps because of a perceived absence in most cases of close family ties as well as a concern with the serious problems of proof that usually lurk in paternity determinations.⁸ See Trimble v. Gordon, ante, at 771. In any event, it is not the judicial role in cases of this sort to probe and test the justifications for the legislative decision.⁹ Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U. S., at 770.

IV

We hold that §§ 101 (b) (1) (D) and 101 (b) (2) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 are not unconstitutional by virtue of the exclusion of the relationship between an illegitimate child and his natural father from the preferences accorded by the Act to the “child” or “parent” of a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident.

Affirmed.

1 Section 101 (b) (1), as set forth in 8 U. S. C. § 1101 (b), provides:

“(1) The term 'child' means an unmarried person under twenty-one years of age who is—

“(A) a legitimate child; or

“(B) a stepchild, whether or not born out of wedlock, provided the child had not reached the age of eighteen years at the time the marriage creating the status of stepchild occurred; or

“(C) a child legitimated under the law of the child’s residence or domicile, or under the law of the father’s residence or domicile, whether in or outside the United States, if such legitimation takes place before the child reaches the age of eighteen years and the child is in the legal custody of the legitimating parent or parents at the time of such legitimation.

“(D) an illegitimate child, by, through whom, or on whose behalf a status, privilege, or benefit is sought by virtue of the relationship of the child to its natural mother;

“(E) a child adopted while under the age of fourteen years if the child has thereafter been in the legal custody of, and has resided with, the adopting parent or parents for at least two years: Provided, That no natural parent of any such adopted child shall thereafter, by virtue of such parentage, be accorded any right, privilege, or status under this chapter.

“(F) a child, under the age of fourteen at the time a petition is filed in his behalf to accord a classification as an immediate relative under section 1151 (b) of this title [§ 201 (b)], who is an orphan because of the death or disappearance of, abandonment or desertion by, or separation or loss from, both parents, or for whom the sole or surviving parent is incapable of providing the proper care which will be provided the child if admitted to the United States and who has in writing irrevocably released the child for emigration and adoption; who has been adopted abroad by a United States citizen and his spouse who personally saw and observed the child prior to or during the adoption proceedings; or who is coming to the United States for adoption by a United States citizen and spouse who have complied with the preadoption requirements, if any, of the child’s proposed residence: Provided, That no natural parent or prior adoptive parent of any such child shall thereafter, by virtue of such parentage, be accorded any right, privilege, or status under this chapter.”

2 Effective January 1, 1977, the parent-child relationship no longer triggers an exemption from the labor certification requirement. Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1976, § 5, 90 Stat. 2705. The 1976 amendments contain a saving clause, § 9, however, which provides that the amendments

“shall not operate to affect the entitlement to immigrant status or the order of consideration for issuance of an immigrant visa of an alien entitled to a preference status, under section 203 (a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as in effect on the day before the effective date of this Act, on the basis of a petition filed with the Attorney General prior to such effective date.”

3 Appellant Ramon Martin Fiallo, a United States citizen by birth, currently resides in the Dominican Republic with his natural father, appellant Ramon Fiallo-Sone, a citizen of that country. The father initiated procedures to obtain an immigrant visa as the “parent” of his illegitimate son, but the United States Consul for the Dominican Republic informed appellant Fiallo-Sone that he could not qualify for the preferential status accorded to “parents” unless he legitimated Ramon Fiallo.

Appellant Cleophus Warner, a naturalized United States citizen, is the unwed father of appellant Serge Warner, who was born in 1960 in the French West Indies. In 1972 Cleophus Warner petitioned the Immigration and Naturalization Service to classify Serge as Warner’s “child” for purposes of obtaining an immigrant visa, but the petition was denied on the ground that there was no evidence that Serge was Warner’s legitimate or legitimated offspring.

Appellants Trevor Wilson and Earl Wilson, permanent resident aliens, are the illegitimate children of appellant Arthur Wilson, a citizen of Jamaica. Following the death of their mother in 1974, Trevor and Earl sought to obtain an immigrant visa for their father. We are informed by the appellees that although the application has not yet been rejected, denial is certain since the children are neither legitimate nor legitimated offspring of Arthur Wilson.

4 Writing for the Court in Galvan v. Press, 347 U. S. 522 (1954), Mr. Justice Frankfurter noted that “much could be said for the view” that due process places some limitations on congressional power in the immigration area, “were we writing on a clean slate.”

“But the slate is not clean. As to the extent of the power of Congress under review, there is not merely 'a page of history’ . . . but a whole volume. Policies pertaining to the entry of aliens and their right to remain here are peculiarly concerned with the political conduct of government. In the enforcement of these policies, the Executive Branch of the Government must respect the procedural safeguards of due process. . . . But that the formulation of these policies is entrusted exclusively to Congress has become about as firmly embedded in the legislative and judicial tissues of our body politic as any aspect of our government. . . .

“We are not prepared to deem ourselves wiser or more sensitive to human rights than our predecessors, especially those who have been most zealous in protecting civil liberties under the Constitution, and must therefore under our constitutional system recognize congressional power in dealing with aliens . . . .” Id., at 530-532.

We are no more inclined to reconsider this line of cases today than we were five years ago when we decided Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U. S. 753, 767 (1972).

5 The appellees argue that the challenged sections of the Act, embodying as they do “a substantive policy regulating the admission of aliens into the United States, [are] not an appropriate subject for judicial review.” Brief for Appellees 15, 19-24. Our cases reflect acceptance of a limited judicial responsibility under the Constitution even with respect to the power of Congress to regulate the admission and exclusion of aliens, and there is no occasion to consider in this case whether there may be actions of the Congress with respect to aliens that are so essentially political in character as to be nonjusticiable.

6 The thoughtful dissenting opinion of our Brother Marshall would be persuasive if its basic premise were accepted. The dissent is grounded on the assumption that the relevant portions of the Act grant a “fundamental right” to American citizens, a right “given only to the citizen” and not to the putative immigrant. Post, at 806, 808, 816. The assumption is facially plausible in that the families of putative immigrants certainly have an interest in their admission. But the fallacy of the assumption is rooted deeply in fundamental principles of sovereignty.

We are dealing here with an exercise of the Nation’s sovereign power to admit or exclude foreigners in accordance with perceived national interests. Although few, if any, countries have been as generous as the United States in extending the privilege to immigrate, or in providing sanctuary to the oppressed, limits and classifications as to who shall be admitted are traditional and necessary elements of legislation in this area. It is true that the legislative history of the provision at issue here establishes that congressional concern was directed at “the problem of keeping families of United States citizens and immigrants united.” H. R. Rep. No. 1199, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., 7 (1957). See also H. R. Rep. No. 1365, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., 29 (1952) (statute implements “the underlying intention of our immigration laws regarding the preservation of the family unit”). To accommodate this goal, Congress has accorded a special “preference status” to certain aliens who share relationships with citizens or permanent resident aliens. But there are widely varying relationships and degrees of kinship, and it is appropriate for Congress to consider not only the nature of these relationships but also problems of identification, administration, and the potential for fraud. In the inevitable process of “line drawing,” Congress has determined that certain classes of aliens are more likely than others to satisfy national objectives without undue cost, and it has granted preferential status only to those classes.

As Mr. Justice Frankfurter wrote years ago, the formulation of these “[p]olicies pertaining to the entry of aliens . . . is entrusted exclusively to Congress.” Galvan v. Press, 347 U. S., at 531. This is not to say, as we make clear in n. 5, supra, that the Government’s power in this area is never subject to judicial review. But our cases do make clear that despite the impact of these classifications on the interests of those already within our borders, congressional determinations such as this one are subject only to limited judicial review.

7 S. Rep. No. 1057, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., 4 (1957) (the amendment was designed “to clarify the law so that the illegitimate child would in relation to his mother enjoy the same status under the immigration laws as a legitimate child”) (emphasis added) ; H. R. Rep. No. 1199, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., 7 (1957) (the amendment was designed “to alleviate hardship and provide for a fair and humanitarian adjudication of immigration cases involving children born out of wedlock and the mothers of such children”) (emphasis added); 103 Cong. Rec. 14659 (1957) (remarks of Sen. Kennedy) (the amendment “would clarify the law so that an illegitimate child would, in relation to his mother, enjoy the same status under immigration laws as a legitimate child”) (emphasis added).

8 The inherent difficulty of determining the paternity of an illegitimate child is compounded when it depends upon events that may have occurred in foreign countries many years earlier. Congress may well have given substantial weight, in adopting the classification here challenged, to these problems of proof and the potential for fraudulent visa applications that would have resulted from a more generous drawing of the line. Moreover, our cases clearly indicate that legislative distinctions in the immigration area need not be as “ 'carefully tuned to alternative considerations,’ ” Trimble v. Gordon, ante, at 772 (quoting Mathews v. Lucas, 427 U. S. 495, 513 (1976)), as those in the domestic area.

9 Appellants insist that the statutory distinction is based on an overbroad and outdated stereotype concerning the relationship of unwed fathers and their illegitimate children, and that existing administrative procedures, which had been developed to deal with the problems of proving paternity, maternity, and legitimation with respect to statutorily recognized “parents” and “children,” could easily handle the problems of proof involved in determining the paternity of an illegitimate child. We simply note that this argument should be addressed to the Congress rather than the courts. Indeed, in that regard it is worth noting that a bill introduced in the 94th Congress would have eliminated the challenged distinction. H. R. 10993, 94th Cong., 1st Sess. (1975).