Running head: SUPREME COURT CASES 1

Supreme Court Cases

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Supreme Court Cases

Lower court case number 07-50445

The Question Presented before The Court: Whether the Supreme Court’s rule on

Nguyen versus INS, 533 U.S allows gender discrimination with no biological basis?

Tuan A. Nguyen was born in 1969 in Saigon, Vietnam. At six years, Nguyen acquired

legal and permanent citizenship of the United States (Medina, 2017). However, at age 22,

Nguyen was arrested and pleaded guilty on two accounts of severe sexual assaults on a distinct

child in Texas state court. Consequently, the naturalization and immigration departments

initiated the deportation accounts against Tuan Nguyen. Rock (2018) states that after being

ordered by the immigration judge, Boulais acquired the order of parentage from the state court.

However, Medina (2017) outlines that the BOMA (board of migration appeals) severely rejected

Tuan Nguyen’s citizenship claims since he did not comply with the 8 USC sections sub-article

1409 (a) needs for an individual born out of the wedlock and abroad to a noncitizen mother and

citizen father. Based on the appeals, the supreme court of appeals rejected Tuan Nguyen and the

Boulais arguments.

In his research, Rock (2018) assert that according to court rulings on the appeal, section

1409 (a) adversely violates equal safety by offering various laws for attaining citizenship by the

child born abroad and out of the wedlock based on whether one parent with legal U.S citizenship

is either the father or the mother. In four to five opinions conveyed by Justice Anthony M.

Kennedy, the Supreme Court significantly held that section 1409 (a) legally comports with

American constitutional assurance of equal protection. In his study, Rock (2018) states that

Justice Kennedy outlined that “for the gender-based categorization to withstand the equal safety

scrutiny, the case must be established at least the classification effectively serves the essential
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governmental objectives to the accomplishment of those aims.” Justices Sandra Day O’Connor,

David H. Souter, Stephen Breyer, and Ruth Bader dissented noting that “nobody should mistake

a majority’s evaluation for the careful application of the supreme court’s equal protection rights

and jurisprudence concerning the sex-based categorizations.” (Rock, 2018) .However, Justice

Kagan did not take any part. As a result, the Supreme Court’s decision significantly does not

permit gender discrimination without a biological basis.

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References

Medina, M. I. (2017). In Search of the Nation of Immigrants: Balancing the Federal State

Divide. Harv. Latinx L. Rev., 20, 1.

Rock, S. (2018). One Step Forward and Two Steps Back: The Victory and Setback Issued by the

Supreme Court of the United States in Morales-Santana. Wis. JL Gender, & Soc'y, 33,

177.