Eunique's arguments were narrowly drawn: essentially, that there is an insufficient connection between her breach of the duty to pay for the support of her children and the government's interference with her right to international travel.

It held that enforcing child-support orders was a legitimate and important state interest, and that the law need not be narrowly tailored to achieve this purpose.

Judge Ferdinand F. Fernadez held that the government only need have a rational basis for imposing the ban, citing Kent v. Dulles 357 U.S. 116,[2] Haig v. Agee 453 U.S. 280,[3] Zemel v. Rusk 381 U.S. 1,[4] Aptheker v. Sec'y of State 378 U.S. 500,[5] Califano v. Aznavorian 439 U.S. 170,[6] Freedom to Travel Campaign v. Newcomb, 82 F.3d 1431,[7] and Weinstein v.

Justice Fernandez opined that the Supreme Court suggested that rational basis review should be applied, distinguishing Aptheker v. Secretary of State (on First Amendment concerns) from Haig and Zemel v. Rusk.

He noted that if a parent (like Eunique) truly wished to partake of the joys and benefits of international travel, § 652(k) had the effect of focusing that person's mind on a more important concern—the need to support one's children first.

Judge McKeown cited Califano v. Aznavorian to support her view that intermediate scrutiny came the closest to being the proper standard, when First Amendment concerns were not implicated.

The restriction imposed here was carefully considered and should be upheld, because securing the payment of child support for minor children was both an important and substantial government interest.

She tied these together with Haig: “[t]he freedom to travel abroad...is subordinate to national security and foreign policy consideration; as such, it is subject to reasonable government regulation” and that the higher standard applied in Aptheker and Kent involved beliefs rather than conduct.

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Andrew J. Kleinfeld (citing the same cases) reached a different conclusion, holding that the law should be subject to strict scrutiny.

Judge Kleinfeld noted that the three pigeonholes (rational basis, intermediate and strict scrutiny) postdate the principles laid down by the Supreme Court governing this case.

The statute and regulation in this case imposed a direct restriction on travel, rather than an incidental burden, and must meet a higher standard of scrutiny than rational basis.

The Court described the right to travel abroad as one of our “basic freedoms" and held that ”the statute was “unconstitutional on its face” because it swept “too widely and too indiscriminately across the liberty guaranteed in the Fifth Amendment”.

The case at bar was thus more like Kent than Zemel because the statute and regulation prohibited Ms. Eunique from traveling out of the United States based on her debtor status (a “characteristic peculiar” to her), rather than “foreign policy considerations affecting all citizens.” Nor did Aznavorian; the Court in Aznavorian explicitly distinguished passport restrictions from the “rational basis” review it gave the suspension of government benefits while abroad, noting that the law at issue “does not limit the availability or validity of passports”.

Haig upheld the application of a regulation narrowly tailored to “cases involving likelihood of ‘serious damage’ to national security or foreign policy" and Regan upheld a narrowly tailored travel restriction that supported the government's important foreign policy and national security interests.

Judge Kleinfeld held the law overbroad because it did not actually require people to remain in the country (as the majority had asserted) and it did not facilitate collection, but instead acted as a penalty for past nonpayment.

He dismissed Judge McKeown's reference to a procedure instituted by the California state agency responsible for child support collections by which parents in arrears may (based on “extenuating circumstances”) request removal from the delinquency list sent to the federal government and used to deny passports, because that possible remedy was a creature of state law and irrelevant to whether the federal law at issue in this case is narrowly tailored.

The other two opinions would evidently allow passport refusal for non-payment of tax arrears, drunk-driving convictions, or failure to obey a summons for jury service; this weighed our liberty too lightly.