US Court of Appeals Cites Professor Kristin Collins’s Scholarship in Citizenship Transmission Case

第二巡回法院在裁定新濠影汇赌场公民身份法违宪之前，引用柯林斯最近发表的文章，命令当事人重新概述关键的法律问题。

Professor 克里斯汀·柯林斯的 2014 耶鲁法学杂志 article, “Illegitimate Borders: 法律杂志 Citizenship and the Legal Construction of Family, Race, and Nation,” was cited multiple times by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in its July 8 opinion in 莫拉莱斯-桑塔纳诉林奇案.

此案的争议在于，一项规定美国新濠影汇网上赌场在外国出生的孩子是否为美国公民的法规是否符合宪法。 如果新濠影汇网上赌场没有结婚，并且只有父亲是美国公民，那么法律对公民身份的传递施加了许多限制，而只有母亲是美国公民时则不适用。

根据法律，请愿人Luis Morales-Santana必须证明他的美国公民父亲在他出生之前已经在美国居住了10年，其中至少有5年必须在他父亲14岁生日之后。 他的父亲只差20天就能满足居住要求。 如果莫拉莱斯-桑塔纳的母亲是美国公民，她只需要在他出生前的任何时候在美国居住一年。 法院裁定莫拉莱斯-桑塔纳胜诉，认为该法规违反了宪法对性别平等的保障。

In briefs submitted in Morales-Santana, the government argued that Congress distinguished between fathers’ and mothers’ ability to transmit citizenship—and treated mothers and their children more favorably—out of concern that the nonmarital, foreign-born children of American mothers were at a special risk of being born stateless. 政府争辩说，这种关切证明了公民权法中基于性别的区别是合理的，尽管这种区别很少被允许。

柯林斯通过广泛的档案新濠影汇线上赌场研究重建了派生公民法的起源，他发现在相关文件中几乎没有对无国籍状态的关注。 Instead, after tracing the origins of the differential treatment of US-citizen mothers and fathers and their nonmarital children to the early twentieth century, she found that the distinction drawn by the statute reflected then-prevalent “understandings of fathers’ and mothers’ respective parental roles.” 2014年秋天，在柯林斯的文章发表后不久，第二巡回上诉法院命令当事各方引用这篇文章重新概述核心宪法问题，并最终得出结论，该雕像违反了宪法中的性别平等原则。

In addition to drawing on Collins’s article in its final opinion, the court also cited a 2010 amicus brief Collins submitted in 弗洛雷斯-维拉尔诉美国, a Supreme Court case that involved the same issue. 该案以4比4的投票结果分裂，法官埃琳娜·卡根（Elena Kagan）被驳回。 The government has not yet indicated whether it will appeal the Second Circuit’s ruling in Morales-Santana.

Collins is a noted scholar of citizenship law, family law, and legal history, whose work has appeared in the 耶鲁法学杂志, 杜克法律期刊, 范德比尔特法律评论, and 法律与历史评论, among other publications. 2012年秋，她在马萨诸塞州历史学会（Massachusetts Historical Society）获得了国家人文基金会（National Endowment for the Humanities）的长期奖学金，她的新濠影汇线上赌场研究重点是家庭法在美国公民和移民法的管理和发展中的作用。