## Facts

- Three groups of U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident petitioners sought family-based immigration preference for an illegitimate child’s natural father or for a father’s illegitimate child.
- The relevant Immigration and Nationality Act definitions granted preference to legitimate parent-child relationships and to illegitimate children based on the mother-child relationship, but excluded the natural father of an illegitimate child from “parent” status and excluded father-based preference for an illegitimate “child.”
- Immigration officials denied the petitions on the ground that the statute did not recognize the asserted father-child relationship for preference classification.
- The plaintiffs sued federal immigration officials, alleging violations of the First, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments, including claims of discrimination based on sex, illegitimacy, and marital status.
- The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York dismissed the actions, relying on Congress’s broad authority over immigration.
- The Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction and affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether the INA’s categorical exclusion of an illegitimate child’s natural father (and father-based preference for an illegitimate child) from family-preference immigration classifications violates the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection component and due process.
2. Whether, given Congress’s power over admission of aliens, courts should apply ordinary equal protection scrutiny to these family-based immigration classifications.

## Decision

- The Court affirmed dismissal and upheld the constitutionality of INA §§ 101(b)(1)(D) and 101(b)(2).
- The Court treated the challenged distinctions as immigration policy line-drawing largely committed to the political branches.
- The Court declined to apply heightened equal protection scrutiny and instead required no more than a facially legitimate justification.
- The Court accepted that Congress could have acted based on concerns about administrability, including difficulties of proving paternity, and judgments about the typical closeness of father-child ties in cases of illegitimacy.
- Dissents argued that the statute imposed unconstitutional sex- and illegitimacy-based discrimination that burdened citizens’ family unity interests and should be reviewed under conventional equal protection standards.

## Legal Principles

- Congressional authority over the admission and exclusion of aliens is exceptionally broad, and judicial review of immigration classifications is highly deferential.
- In challenges to immigration admission preferences, the Court generally will not subject Congress’s categorical classifications to heightened equal protection scrutiny, even where similar classifications outside immigration would trigger closer review.
- Congress may define family relationships for immigration preference purposes through categorical rules, and courts will not closely test the policy justifications if a facially legitimate basis exists.
- Constitutional claims framed as associational or family-unity interests do not, by themselves, displace the deference traditionally given to Congress in immigration and naturalization matters.

## Conclusion

The Court upheld federal immigration provisions that favored mother-based recognition of illegitimate children while excluding analogous father-based preferences, concluding that Congress’s broad power over immigration and the limited role of the judiciary permitted such categorical distinctions on a facially legitimate rationale.


Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. 787 (1977)