Supreme Court hears case of Salvadoran who was denied entry to the US because of tattoos

Although Luis Acensio Cordero, 47, was an undocumented immigrant in 2008, he met American citizen Sandra Muñoz, a prominent civil rights lawyer whom he married two years later.

However, After applying for his Green Card based on his wife’s citizenship, he returned to El Salvador for his final appointment at the US consulate. However, the surprise was that they denied his visa after an interview where they questioned him about his tattoos.

In correspondence to the case, now The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments from Cordero’s defense in a nearly two-hour hearing, where the judges heard how the Department of State (DOS) denied him a visa for supposedly being a member of a gang, which forced him to remain in El Salvador for almost 10 years.

In the narrative, it was described that the couple met in Los Angeles where they married and in 2015 Acensio Cordero returned to El Salvador for what was supposed to be his final appointment at the US consulate and return as a permanent resident.

But during the interview they asked him to undress and they took photos of his tattoos: the Virgin of Guadalupe, theater masks, dice and playing cards, which are for him memories of his childhood and an expression of his Catholic faith.

A consular officer asked him about his criminal record. and he described a three-day arrest for a fight with a friend, for which no charges were filed.

After the interview, the Salvadoran received a notification that his residency application had been rejected, consequently denying him a visa to return to the United States without explaining the reasons for the refusal.

In 2017, The couple filed a lawsuit in a district court in California and learned that they had been denied residency because the Government believed they were a member of the MS-13 criminal gang. based on the interview, his alleged criminal history and his tattoos.

The legal battle waged by the couple, the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), attorney Eric Lee of Diamante Law Group, and attorneys from the University of California Berkeley law school questions the secrets behind the visa decisions and What process, if any, is used to correct erroneous consular decisions.

At this Tuesday’s hearing, The US Department of Justice argued that the Executive has the power to exclude the spouses of US citizens “without giving a reason.”

Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh questioned the US government about what the problems would be if it were required to provide more information in visa denials.

For her part, progressive Judge Sonia Sotomayor led the conversation about other rulings in which the Supreme Court has determined that marriage is “an important constitutional right.”

Attorney Lee said in a statement that “I was encouraged to hear the judges put pressure on the government” by presenting their extreme arguments for denying the Salvadoran visa.

The outcome of the case could have significant repercussions for immigrants in situations similar to Acensio Cordero’s because it is extremely unusual to win challenges to government refusals to grant visas.

*With information from EFE.

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