Miller v. Albright, 523 U.S. 420 (1998), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the validity of laws relating to U.S. citizenship at birth for children born outside the United States, out of wedlock, to an American parent.
[1] Six of the nine justices of the Supreme Court rejected Miller's challenge to the law, in three separate opinions that denied her citizenship claim for different reasons.
[3] His interpretation of existing law was that unmarried men were not fathers unless they chose to be, while a woman's biological tie to her child formed the legal basis of her relationship.
[4] Justices Ginsburg, Souter, and Breyer dissented, agreeing with Miller that the law in question was discriminatory, but concurred that it did not reach the threshold applicable for heightened scrutiny for gender discrimination.
[5] A subsequent case, Nguyen v. INS, 533 U.S. 53 (2001), held by a 5–4 majority that the law at issue in the Miller case facilitated government objectives by identifying biological parent-child relationships and ensuring that customary ties between the child and parent exist before nationality is granted.