Sessions v. Morales-Santana

137 S.Ct. 1678 (2017)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Luis Ramón Morales-Santana (D) moved to the United States at age 13, and has resided in this country most of his life. D is facing deportation. He asserts U. S. citizenship at birth based on the citizenship of his biological father, José Morales, who accepted parental responsibility and included D in his household. José was born in Puerto Rico, on March 19, 1900. Puerto Rico was then, as it is now, part of the United States. José became a U. S. citizen under the Organic Act of Puerto Rico. José left his childhood home on February 27, 1919, 20 days short of his 19th birthday, therefore failing to satisfy §1401(a)(7)’s requirement of five years’ physical presence after age 14. He took employment as a builder-mechanic for a U. S. company in the then-U. S.- occupied Dominican Republic. By 1959, José attested in a June 21, 1971 affidavit presented to the U. S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic, he was living with Yrma Santana Montilla, a Dominican woman he would eventually marry. In 1962, Yrma gave birth to D. Yrma and José married in 1970. In 1975, when D was 13, he moved to Puerto Rico, and by 1976, the year his father died, he was attending public school in the Bronx, New York. In 2000, P placed D in removal proceedings based on several convictions for offenses under New York State Penal Law. D was classified as an alien because, at the time of his birth, his father did not satisfy the requirement of five years’ physical presence after age 14. An immigration judge ordered D’s removal to the Dominican Republic. In 2010, D moved to reopen the proceedings based on a violation the Constitution’s equal protection guarantee. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed the BIA’s decision. The court held unconstitutional the differential treatment of unwed mothers and fathers. The court held that D derived citizenship through his father, just as he would were his mother the U. S. citizen. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.