D.C. Court of Appeals rejects spouse's challenge of visa denial

Last week, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a decision with potentially broad implicati ons for immigrants and relatives wishing to challenge wrongful visa denials. In Colindres v. State Department, two Republican-appointed judges and one Democratic-appointed judge agreed that a lower court properly dismissed a lawsuit filed by the U.S. citizen wife of a Guatemalan immigrant who had lived in the U.S. for years.

The two Republican judges ruled that U.S. citizen-spouses do not even have the right to file a lawsuit when their immigrant spouse's visa is denied. According to the panel majority, the fundamental right to marriage was not violated by the visa denial, even though the denial resulted in the couple's physical separation for four years and counting. The court ruled that the right to marriage "does not include the right to live in America with one's spouse." The majority did not attempt to explain how spouses are expected to enjoy their marriages when separated by thousands of miles. The court's chief judge, Sri Srinavasan, disagreed with this element of the majority's ruling, though he ruled that the married couple's lawsuit failed for other reasons.

The good news for immigrants separated from loved ones by visa denials is that the decision does not have the force of law outside of Washington D.C. In many states, U.S. citizen relatives of immigrants whose visas were denied still have the right to sue the federal government to ensure that visa denials did not violate their constitutional rights.

For those who live in California, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana, a different legal decision from 2022 (called Muñoz v. State Department) held that U.S. citizen spouses do have the right to be married to their spouse, and that they also have the right to stay in the U.S. This means that when the government denies a visa and separates the citizen from his or her spouse as a result, U.S. citizen spouses can sue to ensure the denial did not violate their constitutional rights.

If you would like to learn more about your right to challenge the denial of your visa or the visa of a loved one, contact us to schedule a consultation.