Department of State v. Muñoz

Department of State v. Muñoz, 602 U.S. 899 (2024), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a "citizen does not have a fundamental liberty interest in her noncitizen spouse being admitted to the country." The case was a challenge by a U.S. citizen to the State Department's rejection of her non-citizen husband's application for an immigration visa with little explanation.

In the majority opinion by Justice Barrett, the Supreme Court concluded that history and tradition supported Congress's authority to decide whether a citizen's spouse may enter the country. As such, the majority concluded that the right to marry does not create an exception to consular nonreviewability, under which courts may not review the denial of a visa application.

The three dissenting justices, in an opinion by Justice Sotomayor, said that such a visa denial burdens the fundamental right of marriage, defined broadly in cases like Obergefell v. Hodges, such that the courts may scrutinize whether the government gave a facially legitimate explanation for the denial. However, they thought that the government had sufficiently explained the visa denial by saying it was based on suspected gang affiliation.