Thursday, November 11, 2010

Immigration and Sexism

Currently, the Supreme Court is hearing a case, where the defendant claims part of United State's Immigration Laws are gender discriminatory.  The law states U.S. citizen, unwed mothers can transfer their citizenship to their child if the child lives in the U.S. for just one year.  U.S. citizen, unwed fathers, on the other hand, need to have their child living in the U.S. for five years in order for the child to receive citizenship.  Ruben Flores-Villar is challenging this law because he was denied legal status, despite his father being a U.S. citizen.  Currently, he is claiming this law violates the 5th amendment.  The article also discusses how the justices appeared to feel with Sotomayor, Breyer, and Ginsburg appearing sympathetic.

I am not sure how this case will play out, but Chief Justice Roberts said the only way to fix this constitutionally was to "equalize" the law.  Overall, I feel the law does not make sense because it is completely biased towards mothers.  Personally, I feel it should be one year, regardless of the parent's sex.  I think it would be too difficult to move the mother's requirement up to five years.

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