The U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling for LGBT rights today by striking down the Defense of Marriage Act’s (DOMA) provision prohibiting the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages as unconstutional. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor can found here. The decision concluded DOMA amounted to the “deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment.” The decision found “DOMA instructs all federal officials, and indeed all persons with whom same-sex couples interact, including their own children, that their marriage is less worthy than the marriages of others” and that DOMA was unconstitutional, because there was no legitimate purpose for disparaging those whom states “sought to protect in personhood and dignity.”
Discretion as Default. USCIS Policy Memorandum PM-602-0199, Its Antecedents, and the Litigation That Will Shape Its Fate
June 3, 2026
This article situates PM-602-0199 within the chronological sequence of discretionary tightening that produced it, examines what the memorandum actually directs, surveys the precursor litigation that has already yielded preliminary injunctions, and assesses the legal theories likely to govern the inevitable challenge.
