Court To Hear Citizen Rules Case

Tuesday, January 9th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) â€” The Supreme Court is taking another look at a federal law that treats fathers and mothers differently when deciding whether children born out of wedlock and abroad are U.S. citizens.

In a previous case, five justices indicated they believed the law could be challenged successfully on sex-discrimination grounds.

The case being argued Tuesday was brought to the top court by a Texas man who was born in Vietnam in 1969 to an American father and Vietnamese mother who were not married. Tuan Anh Nguyen has lived in the United States since he was 6 and has been raised since birth by his father, Joseph Boulais of Houston.

In 1997, immigration officials ordered Nguyen deported on his guilty plea to two charges of sexually assaulting a child.

Federal immigration law automatically gives citizenship to children born abroad and out of wedlock if their mother is American and meets a residency requirement. But the law asks more of fathers, including that they legalize the relationship by the time the child turns 18 and agree in writing to provide financial support until the child is an adult.

Nguyen obtained a Texas court ruling in 1992 declaring Boulais to be his father, but it was five years after his 18th birthday.

Nguyen, 31, and his father contend the law sexually discriminates by holding fathers to different standards, violating the Constitution's equal-protection guarantee.

But attorneys for the Immigration and Naturalization Service argue that because the mother is present at birth, motherhood is easier to establish and fathers must take further steps to show paternity and a relationship with the child. They also contend that Congress sets the rules of citizenship and these rules are necessary to avoid fraud, among other things.

Nguyen is represented by the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund. He has been supported in his case by the Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund and by the National Women's Law Center, which says the law is based on ``old-fashioned, overbroad stereotypes about men and women.''

In a 1998 Supreme Court case involving a Texas father and his Filipino daughter, the justices issued a splintered ruling against the daughter who brought it, with some justices saying she did not have legal standing.

On the question of equal treatment, three justices â€” Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer â€” said the law was discriminatory. Two others, Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy, indicated the ruling could be challenged successfully in another case.

Appeals courts have split on the issue. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, in upholding Nguyen's deportation, ruled the law was not unconstitutional. The 9th Circuit, citing the 1998 Supreme Court case opinions, ruled that the law was discriminatory.

A ruling in favor of Nguyen could have a wide impact, federal attorneys say.

In its brief, the government said that if the court finds mothers and fathers cannot be treated differently, ``there surely would be a flood of litigation contending the states must reverse their laws â€” adoption, inheritance, wrongful death and residency â€” that similarly distinguish.''

A decision is expected by July. Nguyen, freed from prison last year, is being held at an INS detention facility in Houston pending resolution of the case.

The case is Nguyen and Boulais v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 99-2071.

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On the Net: Supreme Court site: http://www.supremecourtus.gov