Is The State Department Discriminating Against Same-Sex Couples?

On this week's episode of Versus Trump, Charlie, Jason, and Easha discuss a decision from a federal court in Los Angeles ordering the Government to grant citizenship to both children of a same-sex couple born abroad to one U.S. parent. The trio dig into the little-known world of how children born abroad to U.S. parents are granted citizenship to understand whether the State Department has been discriminating against same-sex couples. Federal law says that children born abroad are citizens at birth if they are "born of parents," one of whom is a U.S. citizen. In the Dvash-Banks case, the parents are a married same-sex couple, one of whom is a U.S. citizen, but only one of two twins is genetically related to the U.S. citizen father. Under an obscure policy, the State Department granted citizenship to the genetically-related twin but denied it to the other twin—even though the U.S. citizen parent is the "parent" of both children. A federal judge in L.A. recently said this was incorrect and ordered that both children be granted citizenship. You can find us at @VersusTrumpPod on twitter, or send us an email at [email protected]. You can buy t-shirts and other goods with our super-cool logo here.  NotesThe opinion in the case is here.We found this opinion through a nice recap by Slate's Mark Joseph Stern. That's here.Easha mentioned this WaPo article and this excellent (and excellently-titled) law review article called "Friends With Benefits?"

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