Fiallo v. Bell – Case Brief Summary
Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. 787, 97 S. Ct. 1473, 52 L. Ed. 2d 50 (1977).
Facts
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, a parent or child of a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident had a special preference immigration status. That status did not extend to an illegitimate child seeking preference by virtue of his relationship with his biological father. It also did not extend to fathers seeking preference by virtue of an illegitimate child with United States citizenship or permanent resident status.
Fiallo (P) and the other plaintiffs in this case are three sets of unmarried biological fathers and their illegitimate children who sought, either as an alien father or an alien child, a special immigration preference by virtue of a relationship to a citizen or permanent resident alien child or parent. Each plaintiff was denied special immigration preference.
The plaintiffs filed this lawsuit in federal district court challenging the constitutionality of the Act under the First, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments. The plaintiffs alleged that the Act 1) violated their equal protection rights 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; 2) violated their due process rights 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 3) seriously burdened and infringed upon their rights to mutual association, to privacy, to establish a home, to raise natural children and to be raised by the natural father.
The plaintiffs sought injunctive relief against enforcement of the challenged provisions of the Act to the extent that it precluded them from qualifying for the special immigration preference.
A three judge district court dismissed the lawsuit, holding that the statutory provisions were neither wholly devoid of any conceivable rational purpose nor fundamentally aimed at achieving a goal unrelated to the regulation of immigration.
Issue
- How extensive is the power of Congress in exercising its power over immigration and naturalization?
Holding and Rule (Powell)
- Over no conceivable subject is the legislative power of Congress more complete than it is over the admission of aliens. The power to expel or exclude aliens is a fundamental sovereign attribute exercised by the Government’s political departments largely immune from judicial control.
Congress was specifically concerned with clarifying the previous law so that the illegitimate child in relation to his mother would have the same status as a legitimate child. The legislative history of those provisions reflects an intentional choice by Congress not to extend preferential immigration status by virtue of the relationship between an illegitimate child and his natural father. Congress has drawn a number of other distinctions in providing some, but not all, families with preferred status in regard to immigration. Congress has the exclusive authority to decide where to draw the line.
It is not for the courts to probe whether Congress has decided not to extend preferential status to illegitimate children due to a perceived absence of close family ties, or due to problems of proof in paternity determinations. No factors exist in the instant case warranting a more searching judicial scrutiny than has generally been applied in other immigration cases.
Disposition
Affirmed.
See Hicklin v. Orbeck for a constitutional law case brief holding that a state may not enact legislation that discriminates against non residents by requiring that state citizens be hired in preference to non citizens.