Law Commons^™

Windsor Beyond Marriage: Due Process, Equality & Undocumented Immigration, Anthony O'Rourke

Journal Articles

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in United States v. Windsor, invalidating part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, presents a significant interpretive challenge. Early commentators have criticized the majority opinion’s lack of analytical rigor, and expressed doubt that Windsor can serve as a meaningful precedent with respect to constitutional questions outside the area of same-sex marriage. This short Article offers a more rehabilitative reading of Windsor, and shows how the decision can be used to analyze a significant constitutional question concerning the use of state criminal procedure to regulate immigration.

From Windsor’s holding, the Article distills …

Immigration After Doma: How Equal Is Marriage Equality?, John Medeiros

Journal of Public Law and Policy

Nearly 36,000 United States citizens are currently living with their foreign-born same-sex partners. Until recently, same-gendered binational spouses have been unable to avail themselves of the immigration advantages shared by their heterosexual counterparts, largely because of Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines “marriage” at the federal level as “a legal union between one man and one woman.” This dual treatment changed, however, in the summer of 2013, when the Supreme Court heard the case of United States v. Windsor, which challenged Section 3 of DOMA. In Windsor, the Court held that by restricting …