## Facts

- Richard Frank Adams, a U.S. citizen, and Anthony Corbett Sullivan, an Australian national, participated in a marriage ceremony in Boulder County, Colorado, in 1975.
- Adams filed an immigrant visa petition with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) seeking to classify Sullivan as his “spouse” and therefore an “immediate relative” exempt from numerical limits under INA § 201(b), 8 U.S.C. § 1151(b).
- The INS denied the petition, concluding the relationship did not qualify Sullivan as a “spouse” under the statute.
- The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed the denial.
- Adams and Sullivan sued in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on statutory and Fifth Amendment grounds.
- With no material facts disputed, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment; the district court granted summary judgment to the INS.
- Adams and Sullivan appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether “spouse” in INA § 201(b) includes a same-sex partner, so that a same-sex marriage qualifies a noncitizen as an “immediate relative.”
2. If “spouse” is limited to opposite-sex partners, whether that interpretation violates the Fifth Amendment (equal protection component and related due process theories) in the immigration context.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the INS.
- The court held that, for INA § 201(b), “spouse” refers to an opposite-sex partner and does not include partners in a same-sex marriage.
- The court held that excluding same-sex spouses from § 201(b)’s “immediate relative” classification did not violate the Fifth Amendment under the deferential standard applicable to immigration legislation.

## Legal Principles

- Immigration recognition of a marriage involves (1) whether the marriage is valid under state law and (2) whether the marriage qualifies under the INA; satisfaction of state-law validity is necessary but not sufficient.
- When a federal immigration statute does not define “spouse,” courts may apply ordinary meaning and statutory context to determine congressional intent.
- Congress may set federal criteria for “spouse” for immigration purposes without being bound by state characterizations of marriage.
- Constitutional challenges to immigration classifications are reviewed with substantial deference to Congress; a classification will be sustained if it has a rational relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit concluded that INA § 201(b)’s “spouse” category did not include same-sex partners and that the resulting denial of immediate-relative immigration classification to a same-sex couple was constitutionally permissible under rational-basis review given Congress’s broad authority over immigration.


Adams v. Howerton, 673 F.2d 1036 (9th Cir. 1982)