Concerns about anti-Asian and anti-immigrant sentiment are being raised following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to shut down visa appeals for noncitizen marriages.
The initial decision centered around Sandra Muñoz, a U.S. citizen, who sought to fight the denial of her El Salvadoran husband’s visa application. Despite being married since 2010, the couple and their child have been living apart since 2015, according to Reuters.
Muñoz, who initially did not receive an explanation behind the denial, was then told that her husband was suspected to be a gang member due to his tattoos, which was denied by an expert brought in by Muñoz.
According to the brief, though, Asian immigrants have faced similar situations from more than a century prior.
“The notion of insulating consular officers’ visa denials from judicial review rests on a foundation of anti-Asian racism and xenophobia,” the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality and Asian Americans Advancing Justice — AAJC asserted in the brief.
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The Center referenced cases related to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, including one that prevented a 12-year U.S. residing Chinese laborer’s re-entry while he was on the steamboat returning to the U.S.
In cases of anti-immigrant spousal denial, the brief also cited a U.S. citizen’s German wife’s visa application being rejected, as it would be “prejudicial to the interests of the United States.”
In both cases, the brief stated that the lack of judicial review permitted anti-Asian and xenophobic sentiments to go unchecked.
Most recently, similar questions have been raised pertaining to Chinese graduate students studying in the U.S. on student visas, some of whom have also been denied re-entry after visiting family in China, Science reported.
The counter-argument, in such cases as well as Muñoz’s, has been protecting U.S. borders.
“To hold for this couple would let those Americans who choose to marry dangerous aliens force their choice on the rest of us,” Dale Wilcox, the executive director and general counsel of the Immigration Reform Law Institute, said in support of the decision, according to Reuters.
Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), who has represented Muñoz in Congress in the past before congressional lines were withdrawn, took to social media platform X to denounce the Supreme Court’s decision.
“This is an extremely disappointing decision, defying our nation’s history of honoring marriage and keeping families together,” Chu said on X.
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