citizenship on anyone born outside the united states rather pursuant to its plenary authority under article one of the constitution it is for congress to determine which categories of such persons should be granted u s citizenship by statu in doing so congress has always required that the persons involved have a demonstrated and sufficient connection to the united states either in themselves or through their parents to warrant the conferral of citizenship because citizenship carries with it attendant duties and rights on the part of the individual and important duties of protection an obligation on the part of the united states government this case concerns the framework under the immigration and nationality act of one nine hundred fifty two as originally enacted for granting citizenship to persons outside the united states as of the date of their birth other provisions deal with the granting of citizenship later in life those who are open to respondent or his father in this case but were not taken advantage of in particular this case concerns the granting of citizenship to children born out of wedlock abroad  situation in which this course this court cases make clear that mothers and fathers are not typically similarly situated with respect to their legal status concerning the child at the moment of birth the general rules for citizenship at birth are set out in eight u s c fourteen zero one and i'm referring to the act as originally enacted it was revised in one thousand nine hundred six if both parents were u s citizens than a child born outside the united states would be a citizen of the united states as long as one of the parents had resided in the united states for any period of time congress deemed not to be a safe connection to the united states given that both parents are citizens on the other hand if one parent was a u s citizen and one parent was an el in congress how to markedly different approach the us citizen parent had to resign and had to have resided in the united states for ten years five of which were after reaching the age of fourteen congress evidently determined that because such a child would have competing claims of allegiance that a greater citizen residency reason was required for the parent to establish the connection to the statute as this court said in the when with respect to another argument that the court address there it's important for the court itself to look at the at the structure text and operation of the statute now arguing and again we think it's entirely evident from the face of the statute that what the what these provisions are after is connection to the united states why aren't men and women  at the at the moment of birth the mother as as this court recognized in the no one case and is recognized in cases like clara births that robertson in the domestic context the mother is the only legally recognized parent many cases especially in generations back when this was with on the books where the mother the birth certificate came some time after the child was born and both the father's name and the mother's name might be on it and so it is not the moment of birth doesn't necessarily tell you who is the mother state statutes that we identify in a footnote in our brief are premised on the proposition that the identity of the mother and her relationship to the child will be known by virtue of the birth alone or at least will be known in the overwhelming majority of cases in that situation there is only one parent there is not a competing claim of citizenship to it competing claim of allegiance to another country through another parent on the other hand when the father legitimates at that point you have two parents and in the situation where they are of different nationalities then you are put in the situation where there are competing claims about why do we look mr kneedler to the moment of fourteen zero nine a with respect to the situation where the father legitimates says the child shall be a citizen as of birth and it's important to understand exactly what's operating here at the at the moment of birth again the child only has one one parent when the father legitimates what congress has done generalists generously one one could say or but at least sensibly is to say we will treat the as if they were married at the moment of birth they are giving retroactive application to the legitimation so that the so that the children the child is treated as the child of married parents at that point if the if the where is this case and it indicates is a question of which does the child have sufficient ties to the country this is quite a different quite different proposition t to address it seems to me two things about that for this court's decision when had to identify two separate entrance one was the proof of paternity and but the other was recognizing the connection to the united states the connection to the united states in a situation like this has two steps what is the relationship of the child to the parent and no one was concerned about establishing that relationship that in some formal sense and also underlying a real sense of a stablish in that relationship this case deals with the relationship of the parent to the united states problem is with the exception that's been created for a citizen mothers the first  the interest of the connection to the united states doesn't exist because the statute doesn't require any connection to the united states except us citizenship she could have been born lived here a day and moved somewhere else and she would automatically confer between the two us citizen parents situation in which any period of residency was ok and the nixon and the mix nationality situation where congress said it had to be ten and five congress chose a period somewhere in between one year i are competing and congress wanted to make sure that the that the strengths of the u s citizens ties were sufficient that they would outweigh or at least counteract or congress could be sufficiently confident of the ti to grant citizenship in that in that situation and again while no couldn't that have been done mr kneedler why couldn't these objectives have been served through entirely gender neutral language for example i know that there was a proposal that the secretary of state made earlier than the statute was passed in the one nine hundred thirty s which talked just about legal parents which didn't refer to mothers and fathers at all right i mean several things about that that i don't think there's a claim in this of the gender inequality that it's that's at the heart of his complaint whether or not he in the end benefits from it the question here is whether the statute makes constitutes a violation of equal protection one question we ask when we think about a question like that is could congress have written the statute could congress have served its objectives in an entirely gender neutral way and it seems as though here we have said the secretary of state presented a statute to congress that actually did that yes but it but as was pointed out of the time as we point out in our brief while that statute on its face looked gender neutral in fact it would have operated in exactly the same way as the statute  the congress or not that operated because and no one has really taken serious issue with the proposition we have in our brief but at the moment of birth it was the overwhelming rule that the mother was the only legally recognized parent so in that the it would have operated in essential the same way and let me let me come out this in a slightly different direction if when you have one parent the mother in this case she gets to make all of the pertinent decisions about the child where they will live where they will be dumb asylum situations like that when a father legitimates he does not he does not then acquire the right to make the sole right to make all the decisions for the child there are then two parents he gets to a lot of complicated things but the question i think is think of the child the child is born out of wedlock now if his mother was an american he becomes an american if she's lived here for one year if his father who's an american she becomes an american only if he's lived here for like eight years or ten years that's the difference and why does that make it different ways but that would justifies the gender discrimination but that's the same rule that applies if the parents are married which is th to two wrongs don't make a road but well i don't think it no one is challenging you are i accept there know when challenging but i'm not asking that question i'm asking the question of what it is i would repeat the question which you heard which i think is the equal protection question at the heart of the case well and the answer that you give in your brief was some endlessly very well written and brilliant stateless person justification to warrant this gender discrimination there's no point in repeating that i think i've taken that argument i have to make up my mind about it is there anything else right with them in the first argument we're making again is is is the  point of connection to the united states and that's where the married couple comes in because it no one is challenging the proposition that congress can impose a residency requirement the requirement i did have justice kagan's question in mind when i read it why don't they ask the child if it would like when it reaches the age of twenty one to be connected to the united states and see if the child votes in american lichens and lives here for a while or are they so worried about the child's parents well meaning and their i mean the case you don't have to know know the the act provides for the acquisition of citizenship at a date after birth and then there's a here for fourteen years and so forth all kinds of stuff but now  the father has to live here for like ten years or eight years or something like that real justification of that you've been able to find and the only one you've been able to find has to do with this thing about it was no no we have to have two reasons the first one is the connection to the united states which is evident on the face of the statute when the father legitimates that what the statute does is treat the couple as if they were married in fact in this case the trial was legitimate hundred six amendments it is easier for the father to acknowledge the child but in that situation again there are two there are two parents and in that situation the father does not get to make unilateral decisions about the child  succession from the mother only the father those laws just put mothers and children not one of america's together and separate fathers from their children  nobody thought until the one nine hundred seventy s that that was a violation of equal protection but in a whole series of cases incendies the court recognized that indeed it was a violation of equal protection where and so and so far as i mean there are two equal protection argument been made in cases like that but one of them has to do with equal protection on the basis of illegitimacy that that claim is not raised here and with good reason because the because respondent as as an alien outside the united person outside the united states and in l a and by statute did not have constitutional rights so it's the parents rights that the law is then existed but mothers and children born out of wedlock get it and a is entry into the citizenry the membership of our society on a permanent basis with rights to come and go with all the rights and obligations but but i also wanted to address your question with respect to the domestic context this court's decision versus roberts and sustained a situation where you were a child was going to be put up for adoption the mother would ordinarily have the sole right to decide that but the situation was one of what about the father will the father had to take some affirmative steps to put himself in a position where he could have a role essential veto power  couple marry yes they did but again at that point he is he is not similarly situated to the mother either at the time of birth or at the time he looked at mr neither can i ask you this question if the court thinks that this statute violates the equal protection clause doesn't necessarily follow that the petitioner is intitled to the relief that was awarded to him by the second circuit in other words the granting know it by no means follows and i look at you address that when we had a similar issue a few terms ago in florida v r case but that was a criminal there what was at issue was a criminal conviction here a criminal convictions are not  what is the remedy if we if we level up then it's easier for both if we leveled them than the right that in order for both we think that we think the court clearly should not apply it to the u s citizen fathers the one your limitation the general rule fourteen zero nine see is an exception to a general rule the cupboards governs the vast majority of the three categories of cases married fathers married mothers and unmarried fathers there is no reason to think that congress would have wanted unmarried fathers to have a more do with what you think of when i when i could think of possibly but i'd like your opinion about it how many do you think unmarried fathers there were in one thousand nine hundred fifty two who couldn't qualify under the long period of time eight years you know and that's not so hard to do if you're in the army because all your active duty counts but they would have qualified into the one you are now i use the numbers in your brief which are brilliant of you to try to i don't know how you fact that this but that i that four thousand number kept coming back i thought maybe they were a couple of thousand a year but but do we know that they're more than a couple of i thought you said they're untold numbers yeah i know you're untold numbers but that's that's true there are untold numbers and then t that i'm trying to find how close we could come it's yeah it's very hard it's very hard to estimate by but this court's decision in when identified the number of of people who travel abroad in the numbers are a qualify if he only had lived here for a year but he wouldn't qualify if he had to live here for eight years before the baby's board never marries the baby never marries a mother ok so i'm thinking who those people have been they would have been people maybe working for american businesses or something and there weren't that many at that time so i'm i'm i use your forethought i thought perhaps was not right we have we have wondered the same thing what do you  court's consistent practice wouldn't you agree that's that's been it's practice yes but that but the court has made clear that that is not constitutionally compelled and there are there are compelling reasons here not to do that well i find one compelling reason to do it and i just thought i'd offer this up to you and see what you have to say is that in this case unlike in some cases there really isn't a choice between levelling up and leveling down in one sense because if you level down  this party gets no relief another word you say well you just apply it prospectively but then this party gets absolutely no relief and so isn't that a problem isn't it kind of the same problem as justice harlan recognized in in in welsh when he was dealing with a criminal matter he said you know you can't level down because you can't give everybody the exact same benefit  so how do we deal with that well several things in this context in particular there are serious questions about whether the court can but at the very least substantial reasons why the court should not gra in a situation like this we think the only proper remedy be given congress plenary authority is to apply the ten year rule to everyone and let congress step in and address the problem petitioners parents have been married would he be entitled to relie no and that's that that's the point at which and another point is there are other situations in which the court finds a constitutional violation but does not grant relief the qualified immunity context or that exclusionary rule the court might  reasonable if we were to level up we would go ahead if we were to level up the effect would be that the petitioner would be given preference over someone who was similarly situated except for the fact that that person's parents were married yes and if such a person were to then bring suit they would have a strong equal protection claim with them i hesitate to say that always traits the problems of the remedy the claim is gender discrimination and married parents they've both been mother and father been treated equally badly but when they're on situation like this not a situation where we say there's an equal protection violation and if we extend the benefit to everybody we can take care of that equal protection violation we can remedy the problem but if we do not if we try to level down the effect of that is that the person or party before us who has proved an equal protection violation gets absolutely no relief at all i'd like to answer that quickly and then reserve the balance of my time of of for report all i think it's also relevant and taking into account the remedy that this is not respondent own constitutional right it's a third party claim there is no automatic right to raise the rights of third parties in this case the father so i think that would probably be taken into account when deciding whether a remedy at all is feasible and what it would be like  mr chief justice may it please the court respondents father was a citizen of the united states holding other things constant had he been the mother instead of the father there would be no question that he transmitted citizenship to respondent under section fourteen  nine but the statute bars him from doing so on the same terms as a mother is not based on any innate or biological difference between man and women or mothers and fathers nor does it insure an interest in reducing state nor does it serve an interest in reducing statelessness or ensuring that citizenship by descent pass only to those children who are likely to learn american values both of the government's justifications for the gender differential out here therefor i'd like to begin by addressing the standard of review there is no dispute here that respondent has third party standing to assert the equal protection claim of his father that claim plainly is subject to intermediate scrutiny  this court applied rational basis review to the claims of aliens who are seeking visas based on their relationship to a us citizen relative it is true as the government points out that the fiala plaintiffs included a us citizen father but the court disagreed that and with with the dissenting justices and with the plaintiffs that his equal protection rights were at stake and there was never any question that the aliens in that case were not u s citizens here the the dispute is one of the dispute centers on a on a right of respondents father to be treated equally to transmit his citizenship on the same terms that a mother could transmit citizenship under section fourteen zero nine you're on this but i was at some point the problem that worries me the most is assuming this is unconstitutional do you put the fourteen years or whatever it is ten years on both for the one y want to because he does have a point you put the one year on both and then you have when the parents are married it's the ten years and when it's the they're not married it's the one year and that really doesn't make much sense but the hope you'll get to that and in the course of that i read in a mike is brief that bothered me a lot and it said actually the one year requirement is tougher and the reason it's tougher it says that the state department administers it how they do this i don't know but i want to know if that's really true but they administer it to say that if you are living in the united states you have to live here from when you're in if you set one foot across the border to get a drink of water at niagara falls you don't qualify and mori over you have to prove that you never did set one foot to get a drink of water well nobody could prove such a thing so so so i'm interested in that word continuous and how it is actually administered those are the two things that are worrying me in respect to remedy to address the last question first the word continuous i do not think wood is going to as a practical matter it can't be applied in a way that somebody would have to come forward and prove that they were in the united states for three hundred sixty five days they would not have to show  proof that they were actually in the united states on each of those days so i am going to use that question that is your answer and maybe at the solicitor general has time he could simply confirm that answer by saying yes let me tell you how it was how it was applied in this case so this  case when we were in the court of appeals the court was the court remanded the case to the western district of new york for a determination on that very question whether or not if the two in order to decide whether the court should address the constitutional issue the court first asked whether respondents father would have satisfied the one continues your rule so we went to the western district of new york and we were not the government ultimately stipulated that yes because we have evidence of respondents father being in the united states  outlying possession from his birth in one thousand nine hundred until the date of his departure for the dominican republic in one thousand nine hundred we will as we will presume that there is at least some period in there where he was in the united states for one continuous year and i think that that presumption would apply in most cases it certainly was applied in this case where do we not have to come forward and show proof on that he was in the united states and every single day and but i think if the court were troubled that perhaps that that rule could be harder for some fathers or some some people to follow but an alternative remedy could be to leave both options on the table if we leveled down and made it harder would that affect the status of people who  equalize the the two similarly situated crosses here it would have to yes it would impact people dramatically because it would take citizenship away from people who already have it and the court has held is not necessary to i assume it can be prospect of because once you have problem isn't it mr broom that the very end of quality that you are complaining of would remain there because it's impossible to claw back everybody else's citizenship so it's really impossible to level down and the very inequality that we've just found would remain but that's right justice kagan the government's proposal of a prospect of remedy is no remedy it would not affect it would not it would not it would leave in place all of the just gender discriminatory effects caused by this statu but it's not just that it doesn't give you citizenship it's that it doesn't cure the inequality at all that whether by leveling down or by leveling up that's right that's right just as kagan and the government i would submit that the government's position would have to be the same if this was a case of race discrimination the government would have to say that yes if the citizenship does that if the citizenship statute discriminated on the basis of race this court would be powerless to correct the residual effects of that racially discriminatory statu the court were not aware of any case in which this court has said it is powerless to correct a case of race discrimination or gender discrimination or any equal protection violation well matt the argument that in most of the cases benefit right you being standing a benefit enjoyed by a smaller group to launch it or not we're not asking for that for the remedy would propose justice ginsburg would not affect marital anomaly there but i would submit justice ginsburg that that anomaly is built into the statute as we see it today and the and you take the case of the unmarried mother if she marries the father the day before the day before the child is born the ten year requirement applies if she marries the father the day after the child is born the one year recall that's true it's like it's isn't it something else when we devise a remedy that deepens a nd extends an equal protection violation and we've never done that well i don't think the court would be extending that you call protection violation i think that they have there if it wouldn't be gender discrimination it wouldn't be it of unwed parents and what has what is the standard of review there but it's also intermediate scrutiny and if we ever said that there would be a different level of scrutiny if the discrimination was against children who were born to married parents would you not make that argument no i wouldn't make that argument but i think that that claim that legitimacy claim could be brought by people today people people who are born to unmarried united states citizen mothers of those i'm sorry children w unmarried mothers but not to children who were born to unmarried fathers and you would extend the problem you would have this court extend the problem what it would that that same thing could be brought today the only difference is whether or not it could be by the child of a mother or a father but i think if you go to the heart of the equal protection violation here the fact that there may also be illegitimacy discrimination going on does not eradicate the equal protection violation i think if the two similarly situated classes here are unmarried united states is and fathers and unmarried united states as mothers and it quite it could be justice alito that congress had good reasons for treating non marital children more leniently than at least in the case of mothers than marital children because historically non marital children were a much more vulnerable class they were the bastards they were the illegitimate and they didn't have the same kind of rights and until nine hundred forty in fact they didn't have a statutory right to citizenship so it could be quite that there could be logical reasons for it and you think that was congress's intended nine hundred fifty two i think in  separated the boarders from their from their guardian parents the problem is that congress assumed or the administrative officials who were not drafted this statute assumed that the the guardian parent was always going to be the mother i mean you can conceive the possibility of members of congress in one nine hundred forty or nine hundred fifty two taking the floor in arguing you know we need to discriminate against the children of married parents and in favor of the children of unmarried parents would be that reflexive assumption that the mother at that time it was a reflexive assumption i don't think it is true today but that the mother was going to be the guardian parent and they wanted to make sure that that the physical presence requirements that that congress was qualify persons would require to fight for citizenship if we adopted living leveling up would that affect our sure that effect i don't think it i don't think it should because at the end of the at the you know play the game two hundred thousand of them is alternately i think the court has to decide whether or not there is an equal protection violation here whether or not but i don't we have to consider what the congress likely would have intended yes and i think what what the record shows is that that given congress purpose here in fact if you take either the purpose that that we have argued was was the purpose of section fourteen zero nine and the purpose that the government has argued  limited class i think you're in justice ginsburg and i would like to turn to the government's argument about u s connection interest people before you do that mr broom and just on the remedy question very occasionally this court has face situation when the natural remedy of something that it is holding there we're concerned a little bit about how whether congress would prefer a different remedies so for example in the northern pipeline case what we did in a situation like that was we stayed our judgment for a period of time and allowed congress essentially to do it a different way if it wanted to and i'm wondering whether you had considered that possibility here that we could order a kind of levelling up judgment but stay it for some period of time so that congress could decide whether it instead preferred some other way of dealing with the problem whether that would be appropriate i think justice kagan for first and foremost the court needs to remedy the equal protection violations suffered by the parties so if if that run if the court were to level up and make respondent respondent a citizen the ultimate if a court has to decide has to remedy the equal protection violation before it and that and not be thinking about what it is not trying to remedy an equal protection violation only in the future and i think that is the fundamental problem with the government's remedy is that it could only apply to unborn children and future parents and i would have no impact on anybody who is affected by the statute at issue before the court today  suggestion the congress apparently should have been aware both were after a florist bill or a case but they were soporific but what we have seen justice kennedy is that since the day that these this discriminatory provision was first in acted in one nine hundred forty it has consistently congress has consistently reduce the burden on fathers so i think if the question is what would congress to do today supposed to do is go back and figure out if they had known that it was unconstitutional to give the unmarried women a year requirement to live in the united states but to give the unmarried man where he's a citizen eight years requirement suppose they'd known that was constitute unconstitutional ban what would they have done then he said then or is it now well i think it's i think a lot easier for you if it's now i think i th bore but but but but which is it is there anything i mean you know you're not going to help me if you just say that because that's in your interest to say is there anything that you could you could point to that would say it's now and not then  as a practical matter i think that if this if the question is how what congress remedy this statute if it can only be remedied by the congress sitting today well that's not the question the question is what that the congress that passed the statute inten with their understanding of been about the appropriate remedy when they passed the statute i think i think the answer to that mr chief justice is that they they did they were they were were concerned that the physical presence requirements would create a significant burden on nonmetal children and that is why they lowered the requirements for the mother because they presume the mother was going to be the guardian and that the child and they they presume that the child should stay with the mother and they didn't want to the physical presence requirements that that that the one nine hundred forty congress would have chosen to just sever the four fourteen or ninety entirely and i think it would be just as destructive of congress of content to withdraw a benefit that congress plainly intended to confer but it would be to  extend the benefit that perhaps congress did so do you i understand you to agree that when we approach these questions of race and room with that we do look at what the congress at the time when they passed the law would have done i'm not sure if there was a clear answer to that mr chief justice  i think if the court could look at what congress would do today and what congress has done in the decades since in any case which supports no i haven't any funny case against not no case for it or against it just look there are you're going cases when we address this question that talks about the attempt of the congress that passed the statute i think certainly and certainly there are plenty of cases on that mr chief justice but i don't think there are any you haven't found one and i don't think anyone the social security cases when but congress did when it did it was just a piece with everything a man with a dominant person in the family and the woman was  pretend that you're implementing congress intent when you say we're going to tell you we're going to put in place we're talking about a remedy not in terms of finding a violation don't pretend that you're implementing congress's intent when you look at what congress but congress sixty years later would do  justice when your remedying age under discriminatory statute by leveling up or leveling down you're never implementing congress's intent you're trying to prove it you're going to ask what would they have wanted if they knew they couldn't make this discrimination that's why i thought well if you have to go back to fifty two they're going to are they have to take the benefit away from the woman or give it to them and the two principles that support you is congress hates taking away a benefit they give anybody they get into a lot of trouble when they take benefits away so that would move them in one direction and it would also move them in the same direction if they're just a handful of then who might really benefit that's why i asked that question but nobody but if there were millions of men who might benefit then they might get a little worried about what they're doing particularly since they're discriminating even more you know the other way against the married couple so that's why i was interested in those questions but i take it you have said pretty much what you can say on that and child without marriage because if they marry the mother they would end up having to fulfill the five year so it would have to be are you accepting her proposition that the father has to because this is a different requirement than than what was at issue in the when case in in when the court addressed the paternal acknowledgement requirement and said well that is a minimal burden for the father satisfied he can he is not similarly situated as at with respect to biological proof of his relationship with the child but the the requirement that he then come forward and take some affirmative steps to demonstrate that by acknowledging the child that that is that satisfies intermediate scrutiny but here we're talking about a leg mother is a u s citizen and had been physically in the united states for one year so i don't see anything that says they have to be legitimatized for the mother to get in fourteen or nine a that if it applies only fourteen zero nine a is the provision that applies to fathers so the remedy would be to apply the one continuous year rule in fourteen zero one a seven and i grant you this is complicated fourteen on a seven as a plot as it applies through fourteen zero nine a and that would put  mothers and fathers on equal footing with respect to the physical presence requirements and then the legitimation requirement still applies to fathers but if i could address the government's u s connection interest in my time remaining the statute here absolutely bars a us citizen father under the age of nineteen from transmitting citizenship to his foreign born child even if the father spent his entire life in the united states up until the day the child is born and even a father legitimates the child and seeks to raise the child in the united states by contrast the statute automatically confers citizenship on a child whose u s citizen mother spent only a year of her life at any point or time even at any point in her life even during infancy and even if the father even if the mother marries the alien father and then the child is raised by the mother and the either there is no dispute here that the statute creates a risk of statelessness for children born abroad to unmarried united states citizen fathers and legitimate their children but who cannot satisfy the ten ten and five year physical presence requirement and the statute of the statute confers citizenship on a child born abroad to an unmarried united states citizen mother even if that child faces and even if her child faces no risk of statelessness at all because she is born  the child is born in a country that assigns citizenship by virtue of being born there you are leaving children uncovered whose mother has siphoned out had a continuous one year residency in the united states because the mother can only pass on citizenship if she's been in the united states continuously for one year prior to the birth of the charm correct that's correct so what happens to a citizen mother who can't meet that one year requirement what happens to her chi one there is a risk of statelessness but that risk of statements this is created by these physical presence requirements that congress chose to impose whether it's the mother or the father the risk is greater with respect to the father's it is lesser with respect to the mothers but it is these physical presence requirements that create the risk of statelessness and therefore the scheme cannot be justified as seeking to reduce the risk of statelessness if the court has no further questions thank you thank you counsel r s three minutes mr leader chief justice first on the merits the provision here for any further is to substantial governmental interests at the time the child is born and there is only the mother as a recognized parent it is uncertain whether the child will ever be legitimated congress has a substantial interest in conferring citizenship on that child at birth if it concludes that there is insufficient connection to the united states congress also has a substantial interest in not digesting that child of citizenship if the child is later legitimated by an alley and father so there are two substantial interests that are furthered and it is precisely tailored to take care of those two interests  citizenship goes by who is the father well if the fight if the father later legitimates is put in the same position as if the if they were married at the time the child was born and we know from four to no one that that that that is that that is a large today there are lots of fathers who do look after their children i don't say they do it perfectly but they try now but i didn't say i was opposed to just the words you said take the same words just put in father instead of mother and today why is it any different when it isn't different i just want to repeat again when the father legitimates there are two parents in lair versus roberts getting the i'm not talking about legitimacy i'm talking about the ones a surprising of people unfortunately never get married and a lot of them do the broad and they do have children will certainly cut one focus is certainly wrong words applied where it was the mother and all my question is couldn't you put those same words and apply it where it father it is i think it's of critical importance and citizenship laws to have a legal occurrence in order to pass citizenship and that's legitimation your suggestion that you could that the father could pass on citizenship notice and filed a document and got notice of the proceeding he didn't get the veto power that the mother had before legitimation he just got to be a parent too and that's exactly what happens here when the father legitimates he's not put in the same position as the mother because there are two parents it's a two parent family with respect to remedy of it let me point out of page thirty eight of our brief where the statelessness is addressed it's clear the interests that i identified the congress wanted to ensure that the child would have