Michael Kagan is co-director of the Immigration Clinic and an associate professor at the William S. Boyd School of Law.On June 18, Professor Kagan wrote “Symposium on Kerry v. Din: Married, But Separated by Michael Kagan” for the ImmigrationProf Blog in which he discusses the recent Supreme Court ruling on Kerry v. Din.
In the case, a divided U.S. Supreme Court found that when a U.S. Consulate denied a visa to the Afghan husband of a U.S. citizen, it did not deny the couple due process. The decision has since sparked analysis by commentators who have looked at the case for hints about how the justices view the right to marriage; Chief Justice Roberts joined an opinion by Justice Scalia that seemed to question the right to marriage.
“I think we still don’t know what the Chief Justice thinks about the right to marriage,” said Professor Kagan. “For the time being, it’s enough to say that he has left himself room to go either way."
In the article, he also noted that despite Justice Scalia’s critique of fundamental rights, the opinion states that it would be a constitutional problem for the government to forbid a “marriage,” a principle that proponents of marriage equality would agree with.
Professor Kagan spent a decade developing legal aid programs for refugees in the Middle East, and has written several of the most widely cited articles in the fields of refugee and asylum law.
