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Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 19, 2013 Decided July 23, 2013 

No. 07-5347 

MENACHEM BINYAMIN ZIVOTOFSKY,

BY HIS PARENTS AND GUARDIANS ARI Z. AND NAOMI SIEGMAN 

ZIVOTOFSKY, 

APPELLANT

v. 

SECRETARY OF STATE, 

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 03cv01921) 

Nathan Lewin argued the cause for the appellant. Alyza 

D. Lewin was on brief. 

Robert G. Kidwell was on brief for amici curiae

Anti-Defamation League et al. in support of the appellant. 

David I. Schoen was on brief for amicus curiae Zionist 

Organization of America in support of the appellant. 

Paul Kujawsky was on brief for amicus curiae American 

Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists in support of the 

appellant. 

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Gregory E. Ostfeld, Elliot H. Scherker and Marc Stern

were on brief for amicus curiae American Jewish Committee 

in support of the appellant. 

Theodore B. Olson was on brief for amici curiae 

Members of United States Senate et al. in support of the 

appellant. 

Dana Kaersvang, Attorney, United States Department of 

Justice, argued the cause for the appellee. Stuart F. Delery, 

Acting Assistant Attorney General, Ronald C. Machen, Jr., 

United States Attorney, and Harold Hongju Koh, Legal 

Adviser, United States Department of State, were on brief. 

Lewis Yelin and Douglas N. Letter, Attorneys, United States 

Department of Justice, and R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant 

United States Attorney, entered appearances. 

Before: HENDERSON, ROGERS and TATEL, Circuit Judges. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge HENDERSON. 

Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge TATEL. 

 KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge: Section 

214(d) of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal 

Year 2003, Pub. L. No. 107-228, 116 Stat. 1350, requires the 

Secretary (Secretary) of the United States Department of State 

(State Department) to record “Israel” as the place of birth on 

the passport of a United States citizen born in Jerusalem if the 

citizen or his guardian so requests. Id. § 214(d), 116 Stat. at 

1366. The Secretary has not enforced the provision, believing 

that it impermissibly intrudes on the President’s exclusive 

authority under the United States Constitution to decide 

whether and on what terms to recognize foreign nations. We 

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agree and therefore hold that section 214(d) is 

unconstitutional. 

I. BACKGROUND

 The status of the city of Jerusalem is one of the most 

contentious issues in recorded history. For more than two 

millennia, the city has been won and lost by a host of 

sovereigns. The controversy continues today as the state of 

Israel and the Palestinian people both claim sovereignty over 

the city. It is against this background that the dispute in this 

case arises. 

Since the middle of the twentieth century, United States 

Presidents have taken a position of strict neutrality on the 

issue of which sovereign controls Jerusalem. After Israel 

declared its independence in 1948, President Harry S Truman 

promptly recognized it as a foreign sovereign. See Robert J. 

Reinstein, Recognition: A Case Study on the Original 

Understanding of Executive Power, 45 U. RICH. L. REV. 801, 

804 (2011). Nevertheless, Presidents from Truman on have 

consistently declined to recognize Israel’s—or any 

country’s—sovereignty over Jerusalem. When Israel 

announced in 1948 that it intended to convene the inaugural 

meeting of its Parliament in a part of Jerusalem that it 

controlled, the United States declined to send a representative 

to attend the ceremonies; a State Department cable explained 

that “the United States cannot support any arrangement which 

would purport to authorize the establishment of Israeli . . . 

sovereignty over parts of the Jerusalem area.” Shlomo 

Slonim, Jerusalem in America’s Foreign Policy, 1947-1997 at 

123 (1998). During United Nations proceedings in 1967, the 

United States ambassador stated that the “continuing policy of 

the United States Government” was that “the status of 

Jerusalem . . . should be decided not unilaterally but in 

consultation with all concerned.” U.N. GAOR, 5th 

Emergency Sess., 1554th plen. mtg. ¶¶ 98-99, U.N. Doc. 

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A/PV.1554 (July 14, 1967) (quotation marks omitted). As the 

Secretary summarized in response to interrogatories proposed 

in this case: 

Within the framework of this highly sensitive, and 

potentially volatile, mix of political, juridical, and 

religious considerations, U.S. Presidents have 

consistently endeavored to maintain a strict policy of 

not prejudging the Jerusalem status issue and thus 

not engaging in official actions that would recognize, 

or might be perceived as constituting recognition of, 

Jerusalem as either the capital city of Israel, or as a 

city located within the sovereign territory of Israel. 

Def.’s Resps. to Pl.’s Interrogs. at 9, Zivotofsky ex rel. 

Zivotofsky v. Sec’y of State, No. 03-cv-1921 (D.D.C. June 5, 

2006) (Joint Appendix (JA) 59). Therefore, “[t]he United 

States, like nearly all other countries, maintains its [Israeli] 

embassy in Tel Aviv,” id. at 8 (JA 58) (quotation marks 

omitted), not Jerusalem. 

The State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM) 

contains passport administration rules that reflect the policy of 

neutrality. The FAM first directs in detail how the applicant’s 

birthplace is to be stated on his passport. “As a general rule, 

enter the country of the applicant’s birth in the [place of birth 

field on the] passport.” 7 FAM 1383.1 (2002) (JA 111).1

 If, 

however, the applicant was born “in territory disputed by 

another country, the city or area of birth may be written” in 

lieu of the country. 7 FAM 1383.5-2 (JA 113). Similarly, an 

applicant may request that his passport list the “city or town, 

rather than the country, of [his] birth.” 7 FAM 1383.6(a) (JA 

 1

 All FAM provisions cited herein refer to the 2002 version, 

which was in effect during the relevant events. 

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115). Regarding Jerusalem, the FAM sets forth a detailed 

policy: 

For applicants born before May 14, 1948 in a place 

that was within the municipal borders of Jerusalem, 

enter JERUSALEM as their place of birth. For 

persons born before May 14, 1948 in a location that 

was outside Jerusalem’s municipal limits and later 

was annexed by the city, enter either PALESTINE or 

the name of the location (area/city) as it was known 

prior to annexation. For persons born after May 14, 

1948 in a location that was outside Jerusalem’s 

municipal limits and later was annexed by the city, it 

is acceptable to enter the name of the location 

(area/city) as it was known prior to annexation . . . . 

7 FAM 1383.5-6 (JA 115). The FAM specifically provides 

that, for an applicant born in Jerusalem: “Do not write Israel 

or Jordan” on his passport and, further, that Israel “[d]oes not 

include Jerusalem . . . .” 7 FAM 1383 Ex. 1383.1 pt. II (JA 

127). In sum, the State Department must record 

“Jerusalem”—not “Jerusalem, Israel” or “Israel”—as the 

place of birth on the passport for an applicant born in 

Jerusalem after 1948. 

Recently, the Congress has attempted to alter the 

Executive branch’s consistent policy of neutrality. In 1995, it 

enacted the Jerusalem Embassy Act, which provides that 

“Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of 

Israel”; “the United States Embassy in Israel should be 

established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999”; and 

“[n]ot more than 50 percent of the funds appropriated to the 

Department of State for fiscal year 1999 for ‘Acquisition and 

Maintenance of Buildings Abroad’ may be obligated until the 

Secretary of State determines and reports to Congress that the 

United States Embassy in Jerusalem has officially opened.” 

Pub. L. No. 104-45, § 3(a)-(b), 109 Stat. 398, 399 (1995) 

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(enacted into law without President’s signature). During the 

Congress’s consideration of the legislation, the Executive 

branch communicated with the Congress regarding its 

constitutionality. See 164 CONG. REC. S15,463 (daily ed. Oct. 

23, 1995). The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) via

an assistant attorney general wrote to the White House 

Counsel: “It is well settled that the Constitution vests the 

President with the exclusive authority to conduct the Nation’s 

diplomatic relations with other States,” that “the President’s 

recognition power is exclusive” and that “[t]he proposed bill 

would severely impair the President’s constitutional authority 

to determine the form and manner of the Nation’s diplomatic 

relations.” Id. at S15,468. The DOJ official explained that his 

conclusions were “not novel”; for example, “[t]he Reagan 

Administration objected in 1984 to a bill to compel the 

relocation of the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to 

Jerusalem, on the grounds that the decision was so closely 

connected with the President’s exclusive constitutional power 

[and] responsibility to recognize, and to conduct ongoing 

relations with, foreign governments as to, in our view, be 

beyond the proper scope of legislative action.” Id. at S15,469 

(quotation marks omitted). Similarly, the then-Secretary 

expressed opposition to the legislation in a letter to the Senate 

Majority Leader. Id. The Secretary explained that “[t]here is 

no issue related to the Arab-Israeli negotiations that is more 

sensitive than Jerusalem” and “any effort by Congress to 

bring it to the forefront is ill-advised and potentially very 

damaging to the success of the peace process.” Id. He echoed 

the DOJ official’s doubts regarding the bill’s constitutionality. 

Id. Ultimately, the Congress enacted the legislation with a 

waiver provision authorizing the President to suspend the 

funding restriction for six-month periods to “protect the 

national security interests of the United States.” Pub. L. No. 

104-45 § 7, 109 Stat. at 400. 

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On September 30, 2002, President George W. Bush 

signed into law the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, 

Fiscal Year 2003, Pub. L. No. 107-228, 116 Stat. 1350. 

Section 214(d) is the provision at issue and it provides: 

(d) RECORD OF PLACE OF BIRTH AS ISRAEL 

FOR PASSPORT PURPOSES.—For purposes of the 

registration of birth, certification of nationality, or 

issuance of a passport of a United States citizen born 

in the city of Jerusalem, the Secretary shall, upon the 

request of the citizen or the citizen’s legal guardian, 

record the place of birth as Israel. 

Id. § 214(d), 116 Stat. at 1366.2

 When the President signed 

the Act, however, he also issued a signing statement, noting 

 2

 Section 214 provides in full: 

SEC. 214. UNITED STATES POLICY WITH RESPECT TO 

 JERUSALEM AS THE CAPITAL OF ISRAEL. 

(a) CONGRESSIONAL STATEMENT OF POLICY.—The 

Congress maintains its commitment to relocating the United 

States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and urges the President, 

pursuant to the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 (Public Law 

104–45; 109 Stat. 398), to immediately begin the process of 

relocating the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. 

(b) LIMITATION ON USE OF FUNDS FOR CONSULATE 

IN JERUSALEM.—None of the funds authorized to be 

appropriated by this Act may be expended for the operation of 

a United States consulate or diplomatic facility in Jerusalem 

unless such consulate or diplomatic facility is under the 

supervision of the United States Ambassador to Israel. 

(c) LIMITATION ON USE OF FUNDS FOR 

PUBLICATIONS.—None of the funds authorized to be 

appropriated by this Act may be available for the publication 

of any official government document which lists countries and 

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that “the Act contains a number of provisions that 

impermissibly interfere with the constitutional functions of 

the presidency in foreign affairs,” including section 214: 

Section 214, concerning Jerusalem, impermissibly 

interferes with the President’s constitutional 

authority to conduct the Nation’s foreign affairs and 

to supervise the unitary executive branch. Moreover, 

the purported direction in section 214 would, if 

construed as mandatory rather than advisory, 

impermissibly interfere with the President’s 

constitutional authority to formulate the position of 

the United States, speak for the Nation in 

international affairs, and determine the terms on 

which recognition is given to foreign states. U.S. 

policy regarding Jerusalem has not changed. 

Statement on Signing the Foreign Relations Authorization 

Act, Fiscal Year 2003, 2002 WL 31161653 (Sept. 30, 2002). 

Menachem Zivotofsky (Zivotofsky) is a United States 

citizen born in 2002 in Jerusalem to parents who are United 

States citizens. Compl. ¶¶ 2-5, Zivotofsky ex rel. Zivotofsky v. 

Sec’y of State, No. 03-cv-1921 (D.D.C. Sept. 16, 2003) (JA 8-

9); see also 8 U.S.C. § 1401(c) (making “national[ ] and 

citizen[ ] of the United States at birth . . . a person born 

 

their capital cities unless the publication identifies Jerusalem 

as the capital of Israel. 

(d) RECORD OF PLACE OF BIRTH AS ISRAEL FOR 

PASSPORT PURPOSES.—For purposes of the registration of 

birth, certification of nationality, or issuance of a passport of a 

United States citizen born in the city of Jerusalem, the 

Secretary shall, upon the request of the citizen or the citizen’s 

legal guardian, record the place of birth as Israel. 

Pub. L. No. 107-228 § 214, 116 Stat. at 1365-66. 

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outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of 

parents both of whom are citizens of the United States and 

one of whom has had a residence in the United States or one 

of its outlying possessions, prior to the birth of such person”). 

In 2002, Zivotofsky’s mother applied for a United States 

passport for Zivotofsky, listing his birthplace as “Jerusalem, 

Israel.” Id. ¶ 8 (JA 9). The State Department, however, 

following its Jerusalem policy set forth in 7 FAM 1383.5-6, 

issued a passport in Zivotofsky’s name listing “Jerusalem” as 

his place of birth. Id. 

On September 16, 2003, Zivotofsky, “by his parents and 

guardians, Ari Z. and Naomi Siegman Zivotofsky,” brought 

suit against the Secretary, seeking, inter alia, declaratory 

relief and a permanent injunction ordering the Secretary to 

issue him a passport listing “Jerusalem, Israel” as his place of 

birth. Id. at 3 (JA 10).3

 The litigation has been up and down 

the appellate ladder. First, on September 7, 2004, the district 

court dismissed the case, concluding that Zivotofsky lacked 

Article III standing and, alternatively, that the case presented 

a nonjusticiable political question. Zivotofsky ex rel. 

Zivotofsky v. Sec’y of State, No. 03-cv-1921, 2004 WL 

5835212 (D.D.C. Sept. 7, 2004). We subsequently reversed 

and remanded, holding that Zivotofsky had standing.4

Zivotofsky ex rel. Zivotofsky v. Sec’y of State, 444 F.3d 614 

(D.C. Cir. 2006). We noted that Zivotofsky had amended the 

injunctive relief he initially sought, requesting that the 

 3

 Zivotofsky’s complaint alleged that the State Department 

also improperly recorded his place of birth on his consular report of 

birth abroad as “Jerusalem.” At oral argument, however, 

Zivotofsky’s counsel made clear that he raised no legal argument 

distinguishing the consular report of birth abroad from the passport. 

Oral Arg. Tr. 23-24. 

4

 We did not reach the political question issue. 

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Secretary record “Israel” instead of “Jerusalem, Israel” as his 

place of birth on his passport. Id. at 616 n.1. Because “[t]he 

case . . . no longer involve[d] the claim the district court 

considered,” we “remand[ed] the case to the district court so 

that both sides may develop a more complete record relating 

to these and other subjects of dispute.” Id. at 619-20. 

On September 19, 2007, the district court again dismissed 

the case, once more deciding it presented a nonjusticiable 

political question. Zivotofsky ex rel. Zivotofsky v. Sec’y of 

State, 511 F. Supp. 2d 97 (D.D.C. 2007) (Zivotofsky III). We 

affirmed, concluding that “[b]ecause the judiciary has no 

authority to order the Executive Branch to change the nation’s 

foreign policy in this matter, this case is nonjusticiable under 

the political question doctrine.” Zivotofsky v. Sec’y of State, 

571 F.3d 1227, 1228 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (Zivotofsky IV).5

The United States Supreme Court vacated and remanded, 

holding that the case does not present a political question. 

Zivotofsky ex rel. Zivotofsky v. Clinton, 132 S. Ct. 1421 

(2012) (Zivotofsky V). The Court explained that “[t]he federal 

courts are not being asked to supplant a foreign policy 

decision of the political branches . . . . [i]nstead, Zivotofsky 

requests that the courts enforce a specific statutory right.” Id.

at 1427. Given that the parties do not dispute the substance of 

section 214(d), that is, its requirement that “Israel” be 

recorded on the passport as the applicant’s birthplace at his 

request, “the only real question for the courts is whether the 

statute is constitutional,” which requires “deciding whether 

the statute impermissibly intrudes upon Presidential powers 

under the Constitution.” Id. at 1427-28. The Court further 

 5

 Senior Judge Edwards concurred, noting that he would have 

rejected Zivotofsky’s claim on the merits. Zivotofsky IV, 571 F.3d 

at 1233-34 (Edwards, J., concurring). 

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explained that “[r]esolution of Zivotofsky’s claim demands 

careful examination of the textual, structural, and historical 

evidence put forward by the parties regarding the nature of the 

statute and of the passport and recognition powers.” Id. at 

1430. 

II. THE MERITS

Before addressing the merits, we address two preliminary 

matters. First, Zivotofsky argues that we must “ ‘not pass 

upon a constitutional question although properly presented by 

the record, if there is also present some other ground upon 

which the case may be disposed of.’ ” United States v. 

Brinson-Scott, 714 F.3d 616, 621 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (quoting 

Ashwander v. Tenn. Valley Auth., 297 U.S. 288, 347 (1936) 

(Brandeis, J., concurring)). Zivotofsky maintains that we 

should not reach the Secretary’s constitutional defense 

because section 214(d) constitutes permissible passport 

legislation. But Zivotofsky’s proposed solution—that we hold 

in effect that the President’s constitutional recognition power 

is not so broad as to encompass section 214(d)—is a 

constitutional holding. We would not avoid “pass[ing] upon a 

constitutional question” by resolving the case in that manner; 

instead we would give the President’s constitutional power 

the narrow construction Zivotofsky presses. Moreover, the 

Supreme Court has specifically instructed us to examine “the 

textual, structural, and historical evidence . . . regarding the 

nature . . . of the passport and recognition powers.” Zivotofsky 

V, 132 S. Ct. at 1430. 

 Second, in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company v. 

Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952), Justice Jackson set forth a 

tripartite framework for evaluating the President’s powers to 

act depending on the level of congressional acquiescence. Id.

at 635 (Jackson, J., concurring); see also Medellin v. Texas, 

552 U.S. 491, 524 (2008) (“Justice Jackson’s familiar 

tripartite scheme provides the accepted framework for 

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evaluating executive action in this area.”). First, “[w]hen the 

President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization 

of Congress, his authority is at its maximum, for it includes 

all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress 

can delegate.” Youngstown, 343 U.S. at 635. Second, “[w]hen 

the President acts in absence of either a congressional grant or 

denial of authority, he can only rely upon his own 

independent powers, but there is a zone of twilight in which 

he and Congress may have concurrent authority, or in which 

its distribution is uncertain.” Id. at 637. Third, “[w]hen the 

President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or 

implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for 

then he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers 

minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the 

matter.” Id. Both parties agree that this case falls into category 

three. In this category the President may nonetheless 

exercise—and the Congress cannot invade—the President’s 

“exclusive power.” Id. at 637 n.4. The question here is 

whether exclusive Executive branch power authorizes the 

Secretary to decline to enforce section 214(d). 

A. The Recognition Power 

Recognition is the act by which “a state commits itself to 

treat an entity as a state or to treat a regime as the government 

of a state.” RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF FOREIGN RELATIONS 

LAW § 94(1). “The rights and attributes of sovereignty belong 

to [a state] independently of all recognition, but it is only after 

it has been recognized that it is assured of exercising them.” 1 

John Bassett Moore, A Digest of International Law § 27, at 72 

(1906) (MOORE’S INT’L LAW DIGEST). Recognition is 

therefore a critical step in establishing diplomatic relations 

with the United States; if the United States does not recognize 

a state, it means the United States is “unwilling[] to 

acknowledge that the government in question speaks as the 

sovereign authority for the territory it purports to control.” 

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Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, 376 U.S. 398, 410 

(1964). Recognition also confers other substantial benefits. 

For example, a recognized sovereign generally may (1) 

maintain a suit in a United States court, see id. at 408-09; 

Guaranty Trust Co. v. United States, 304 U.S. 126, 137 

(1938); (2) assert the sovereign immunity defense in a United 

States court, see Nat’l City Bank v. Republic of China, 348 

U.S. 356, 359 (1955); and (3) benefit from the “act of state” 

doctrine, which provides that “[e]very sovereign state is 

bound to respect the independence of every other sovereign 

state, and the courts of one country will not sit in judgment on 

the acts of the government of another done within its own 

territory,” Oetjen v. Cent. Leather Co., 246 U.S. 297, 303 

(1918) (quotation marks omitted). 

A government typically recognizes a foreign state by 

“written or oral declaration.” 1 MOORE’S INT’L LAW DIGEST 

§ 27, at 73. Recognition may also be implied as “when a 

[recognizing] state enters into negotiations with the new state, 

sends it diplomatic agents, receives such agents officially, 

gives exequaturs to its consuls, [and] forms with it 

conventional relations.”6 Id.; see also David Gray Adler, The 

President’s Recognition Power, reprinted in The Constitution 

and the Conduct of American Foreign Policy 133 (David 

Gray Adler & Larry N. George eds., 1996) (“At international 

law, the act of receiving an ambassador of a foreign 

government entails certain legal consequences. The reception 

of an ambassador constitutes a formal recognition of the 

sovereignty of the state or government represented.”). 

 6

 An exequatur is a “document from the host country [to a 

foreign consul] that permits the consul to take up consular 

functions.” Saikrishna B. Prakash & Michael D. Ramsey, The 

Executive Power Over Foreign Affairs, 111 YALE L.J. 231, 313 

(2001). 

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As noted earlier, the Supreme Court has directed us to 

examine the “textual, structural, and historical evidence” the 

parties have marshaled regarding “the nature . . . of the 

passport and recognition powers.” Zivotofsky V, 132 S. Ct. at 

1430. We first address the recognition power and, in 

particular, whether the power is held exclusively by the 

President. 

B. The President and the Recognition Power 

Text and Originalist Evidence 

Neither the text of the Constitution nor originalist 

evidence provides much help in answering the question of the 

scope of the President’s recognition power. In support of his 

view that the recognition power lies exclusively with the 

President, the Secretary cites the “receive ambassadors” 

clause of Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, which 

provides, inter alia, that the President “shall receive 

Ambassadors and other public Ministers.” U.S. CONST., art II, 

§ 3. But the fact that the President is empowered to receive 

ambassadors, by itself, does not resolve whether he has the 

exclusive authority to recognize foreign nations. Some 

scholars have suggested other constitutional provisions as 

possible sources of authority for the President to exercise the 

recognition power but conclude that the text of those 

provisions does not itself resolve the issue.7

 7 See, e.g., Reinstein, supra, at 809 & n.48, 810-11, 816 

(discussing, but finding inconclusive, text of U.S. CONST., art. II, § 

1, cl. 1 (“The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the 

United States of America.”); U.S. CONST., art. II, § 2, cl. 2 

(President “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and 

Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors[ and] other 

public Ministers and Consuls”); U.S. CONST., art. II, § 3 

(“[President] shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”) 

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Originalist evidence also fails to clarify the Constitution’s 

text. The Federalist Papers contain no mention of the 

recognition power although Federalist No. 69, written by 

Alexander Hamilton under the pseudonym “Publius,” refers to 

the “receive ambassadors” clause. Writing in 1788, Hamilton 

characterized the clause as virtually meaningless: 

[T]hough it has been a rich theme of declamation,8

[it] is more a matter of dignity than of authority[,] . . 

. . a circumstance which will be without consequence 

in the administration of the government; and it was 

far more convenient that it should be arranged in this 

manner, than that there should be a necessity of 

convening the legislature, or one of its branches, 

upon every arrival of a foreign minister; though it 

were merely to take the place of a departed 

predecessor. 

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 69, reprinted in The 

Federalist 360 (George W. Carey & James McLellan eds. 

2001). The President’s power to receive ambassadors may of 

necessity mean that he has the power not only to “receive” a 

foreign ambassador but also to decide whether and when to 

 

as compared with legislative powers set forth in U.S. CONST., art. I, 

§ 8, cls. 3, 4, 11, 18 (“The Congress shall have Power To . . . 

regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, . . . establish an uniform 

Rule of Naturalization, . . . declare War . . . [and] make all Laws 

which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the 

foregoing Powers”)); see also Prakash & Ramsey, supra, at 234-35, 

253, 316-17 (interpreting Executive Vesting Clause, U.S. CONST., 

art. II, § 1, cl. 1., and using, inter alia, eighteenth-century meaning 

of executive power). 

8

 Scholars, it appears, have been unable to confirm Hamilton’s 

claim that the “receive ambassadors” clause “has been a rich theme 

of declamation.” See Reinstein, supra, at 845-46. 

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receive him.9

 In fact, five years after writing Federalist No. 

69, Hamilton adopted this interpretation of the “receive 

ambassadors” clause. In 1793, while serving in President 

George Washington’s cabinet, Hamilton, then writing as 

“Pacificus,” declared that the clause gave the President the 

power to determine whether the government sending the 

ambassador should be recognized by the United States. 

United States National Archives, Pacificus No. 1 (June 29, 

1793), available at http://founders.archives.gov/documents/

Hamilton/01-15-02-0038. Hamilton explained that “[t]he 

Legislative Department is not the organ of intercourse 

between the UStates and foreign Nations. . . . It is therefore 

not naturally that Organ of the Government which is to 

pronounce the existing condition of the Nation, with regard to 

foreign Powers . . . .” Id. Rather, “[t]he right of the Executive 

to receive ambassadors and other public Ministers . . . . 

includes that of judging, in the case of a Revolution of 

Government in a foreign Country, whether the new rulers are 

competent organs of the National Will and ought to be 

recognised or not.” Id.

There is little other ratification-era evidence regarding the 

recognition of foreign governments. In fact, “there is no 

record that the subject of recognizing foreign states or 

governments ever came up in the [Constitutional] 

Convention.” Reinstein, supra, at 845. One scholar offers two 

explanations for this gap. First, he suggests that “the founders 

carefully enumerated the powers of the President and 

 9

 According to the Restatement, when the President receives 

an ambassador, he recognizes by implication the sovereignty of the 

sending foreign government. See, e.g., RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF 

FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW § 204, Reporters’ Note 2 (“Recognition 

of a state has been effected by . . . receiving the credentials of a 

diplomatic representative of that state.”). 

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17 

deliberately omitted the recognition power.” Id. at 860. But if 

this were the case, it would be unclear which branch, if any, 

possessed the power. His second explanation is more 

plausible: “Whether the European nations would accept the 

United States into their community was of considerable 

importance to the new nation, but whether the United States 

would ‘recognize’ the European nations was a non[ 

]sequitur.” Id. at 861. In other words, the Framers apparently 

were not concerned with how their young country recognized 

other nations because the issue was not important to them at 

the time of ratification. 

Post-ratification History 

Both parties make extensive arguments regarding the 

post-ratification recognition history of the United States. As 

the Supreme Court has explained, longstanding and consistent 

post-ratification practice is evidence of constitutional 

meaning. See, e.g., Republican Party of Minn. v. White, 536 

U.S. 765, 785 (2002) (“[A] universal and long-established 

tradition of prohibiting certain conduct creates a strong 

presumption that the prohibition is constitutional . . . .” 

(quotation marks omitted)); Mistretta v. United States, 488 

U.S. 361, 401 (1989) (“Our 200-year tradition of extrajudicial 

service is additional evidence that the doctrine of separated 

powers does not prohibit judicial participation in certain 

extrajudicial activity.”); Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 

790 (1983) (“two centuries of national practice,” including 

practice authorized by first Congress, provides 

“contemporaneous and weighty evidence” of constitutionality 

(quotation marks omitted)). We conclude that longstanding 

post-ratification practice supports the Secretary’s position that 

the President exclusively holds the recognition power. 

 Beginning with the administration of our first President, 

George Washington, the Executive has believed that it has the 

exclusive power to recognize foreign nations. In 1793, 

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President Washington’s cabinet unanimously concluded that 

Washington need not consult with the Congress before 

receiving the minister from France’s post-revolutionary 

government, notwithstanding his receiving the minister 

recognized the new government by implication. Saikrishna B. 

Prakash & Michael D. Ramsey, The Executive Power Over 

Foreign Affairs, 111 YALE L.J. 231, 312 (2001). Nor did the 

Congress “purport[ ] to tell Washington which countries or 

governments to recognize.” Id. at 312-13. The Washington 

administration also took sole control of issuing exequaturs to 

foreign consuls. Id. at 313 (President Washington “not only 

signed exequaturs, he also set policy respecting their 

issuance” (footnote omitted)); see also 3 Thomas Jefferson, 

Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies from the Papers 

of Thomas Jefferson 298 (Thomas Jefferson Randolph ed. 

1829) (“[T]he commission of consul to M. Dannery ought to 

have been addressed to the President of the United States. He 

being the only channel of communication between this 

country and foreign nations, it is from him alone that foreign 

nations or their agents are to learn what is or has been the will 

of the nation . . . .” (emphases added)). 

In 1817, President James Monroe prevailed in a standoff 

with Speaker of the House Henry Clay over the recognition 

power. Clay had announced that he “intended moving the 

recognition of Buenos Ayres and probably of Chile.” Julius 

Goebel, Jr. The Recognition Policy of the United States 121 

(1915). But when Clay attempted to amend an appropriations 

bill to appropriate $18,000 for an American minister to be 

sent to South America, id. at 123-24, he was forced to modify 

the amendment to manifest that the decision whether to send 

the minister belonged to the President, see 32 ANNALS OF 

CONGRESS 1498-1500 (1818). And, in fact, even Clay’s 

weakened amendment was defeated in the House; “the reason 

for the defeat appears to have been that the amendment was 

interfering with the functions of the executive.” Goebel, 

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19 

supra, at 124; see also 32 ANNALS OF CONG. 1538 (1818) 

(statement of Rep. Smith) (“The Constitution has given . . . to 

the President the direction of our intercourse with foreign 

nations. It is not wise for us to interfere with his powers 

. . . .”); id. at 1570 (statement of Rep. Smyth) (“[T]he 

acknowledgement of the independence of a new Power is an 

exercise of Executive authority; consequently, for Congress to 

direct the Executive how he shall exercise this power, is an 

act of usurpation.”). According to Goebel, Clay’s defeat 

“meant a great increase of strength for the administration” 

because “it had received a direct confirmation of its ultimate 

right to determine whether a government was to be 

recognized.” Goebel, supra, at 124. 

 In 1864 and, again, 1896, the Executive branch 

challenged the individual houses of the Congress for intruding 

into the realm of recognition, which eventually led the 

Congress to refrain from acting. In 1864, the House passed a 

resolution asserting that it did not acknowledge Archduke 

Ferdinand Maximilian von Habsburg as the Emperor of 

Mexico. CONG. GLOBE, 38TH CONG., 1ST SESS. 1408 (1864). 

The then-Secretary wrote to the United States Minister to 

France, stating that the recognition authority is “purely 

executive,” belonging “not to the House of Representatives, 

nor even to Congress, but to the President.” Id. at 2475. The 

Senate ultimately did not act on the bill.10 In 1896, the Senate 

Foreign Relations Committee presented a joint resolution to 

 10 The House subsequently passed a resolution that stated, in 

pertinent part, “Congress has a constitutional right to an 

authoritative voice in declaring and prescribing the . . . recognition 

of new Powers as in other matters . . . .” CONG. GLOBE, 38TH 

CONG., 2D SESS. 65-67 (1864). The Senate never acted on the 

resolution. Edward S. Corwin, The President’s Control of Foreign 

Relations at 42-43 (1917). 

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20 

the full Senate purporting to recognize Cuba’s independence. 

29 CONG. REC. 326, 332 (1896). The then-Secretary 

responded with a statement that the power to “recognize the 

so-called Republic of Cuba as an independent State rests 

solely with the Executive”; a joint resolution would have only 

“advice of great weight.” Eugene V. Rostow, Great Cases 

Make Bad Law: The War Powers Act, 50 TEX. L. REV. 866-67 

(1972) (quotation marks omitted); see also Congress 

Powerless, N.Y. TIMES, Dec. 19, 1896, available at http://

query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F10D13F73B5

F1B738DDDA90A94DA415B8685F0D3. Again, the Senate 

did not act on the proposed joint resolution. 

In 1919, the Congress once again relented in response to 

the President’s assertion of exclusive recognition power. That 

year, the Senate considered a resolution which recommended 

withdrawing recognition of the then-existing Mexican 

government. PRELIM. REPORT & HR’GS OF THE SEN. COMM.

ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, INVESTIGATION OF MEXICAN 

AFFAIRS, S. DOC. NO. 66-285, at 843D (2d. Sess. 1919-20). In 

response, President Woodrow Wilson informed the Congress 

that the resolution, if enacted, would “constitute a reversal of 

our constitutional practice which might lead to very grave 

confusion in regard to the guidance of our foreign affairs” 

because “the initiative in directing the relations of our 

Government with foreign governments is assigned by the 

Constitution to the Executive, and to the Executive, only.” Id.

“Within half an hour of the letter’s receipt[,] Senator Lodge, 

Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, announced 

that the [ ] resolution was dead. President Wilson, Mr. Lodge 

said, must now accept entire responsibility for Mexican 

relations.” Wilson Rebuffs Senate on Mexico, N.Y. TIMES, 

Dec. 8, 1919, available at http://query.nytimes.com/mem/

archive-free/pdf?res=9C00E2DD123BEE32A2575AC0A964

9D946896D6CF.

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Zivotofsky marshals several isolated events in support of 

his position that the recognition power does not repose solely 

in the Executive but they are unconvincing. First, Zivotofsky 

argues that in 1898 the Senate passed a joint resolution stating 

“the Government of the United States hereby recognizes the 

Republic of Cuba as the true and lawful Government of that 

Island.” Br. for Appellant 42. But review of the Congressional 

Record shows that the quoted language was not included in 

the joint resolution; rather, it was included in a proposed joint 

resolution in the Senate. See 31 CONG. REC. 3988 (1898). And 

the proposed resolution raised separation-of-powers concerns 

with many Senators. See id. at 3990 (statement of Sen. 

Gorman) (“I regret exceedingly . . . for the first time in the 

history of the country, this great body should incorporate . . . a 

power which has been disputed by every Executive from 

Washington down—the right of Congress by law to provide 

for the recognition of a state.”); id. at 3991 (statement of Sen. 

Allison (calling amendment “contravention of . . . well-settled 

principles” and Executive “alone can deal with this question 

in its final aspects”); id. at 3991-92 (statement of Sen. 

Aldrich) (“We have no right at such a time to exercise 

functions that belong to the Executive.”). When the House 

received the proposed joint resolution, it removed the 

recognition clause. See id. at 4080. The joint resolution, as 

passed, stated only that “the people” of Cuba were “free and 

independent.” See 30 Stat. 738 (Apr. 20, 1898).11

Zivotofsky also relies on events that occurred during the 

administrations of President Andrew Jackson and President 

 11 The joint resolution provided in full: “Resolved by the 

Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of 

America in Congress assembled, First. That the people of the Island 

of Cuba are, and of right ought to be, free and independent.” 30 

Stat. 738 (Apr. 20, 1898). 

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22 

Abraham Lincoln. In both instances, however, the Congress 

did not attempt to exercise the recognition power. Instead, it 

authorized appropriations to be used by the President to 

dispatch diplomatic representatives. In 1836, President 

Jackson expressed a desire to “unite” with the Congress 

before recognizing Texas as independent from Mexico. 

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES UPON 

THE SUBJECT OF THE POLITICAL, MILITARY, AND CIVIL 

CONDITION OF TEXAS, H.R. DOC. NO. 24-35, at 4 (2d Sess. 

1836). But in doing so, Jackson did not suggest that he lacked 

the exclusive recognition power. See id. at 2 (“[O]n the 

ground of expediency, I am disposed to concur, and do not, 

therefore, consider it necessary to express any opinion as to 

the strict constitutional right of the Executive, either apart 

from or in conjunction with the Senate, over the subject.”). 

Rather, Jackson merely enlisted the support of the Congress 

as a matter of political prudence. In any event, the Congress 

did not attempt to exercise the recognition power on its own. 

Instead, the Congress appropriated funds for the President to 

authorize a “diplomatic agent to be sent to the Republic of 

Texas, whenever the President of the United States . . . shall 

deem it expedient to appoint such minister.” 5 Stat. 107 

(1837). Similarly, President Lincoln expressed a desire to 

coordinate with the Congress by requesting that it use its 

appropriations authority to endorse his recognition of Liberia 

and Haiti. See Lincoln’s First Annual Message to Congress 

(Dec. 3, 1861), available at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/

ws/?pid=29502. And the Congress subsequently did so. 12 

Stat. 421.12 

 12 Zivotofsky also calls our attention to the recognition of 

Hungary during President Zachary Taylor’s administration. The 

Secretary wrote to the President’s appointed minister to Hungary: 

“Should the new government prove to be, in your opinion, firm and 

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Supreme Court Precedent 

It is undisputed that “in the foreign affairs arena, the 

 

stable, the President will cheerfully recommend to Congress, at 

their next session, the recognition of Hungary.” Letter from Clayton 

to Mann (June 18, 1849), reprinted in 1 MOORE’S INT’L L. DIGEST

§ 75, at 246. Zivotofsky argues that the letter manifests Taylor’s 

uncertainty regarding his exclusive recognition authority. But 

another communication from President Taylor made clear that he 

understood that he was authorized to recognize Hungary without 

the Congress. See 5 A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of 

the Presidents, 1789-1897 at 12 (James D. Richardson ed. 1897) 

(State of the Union address) (“I thought it my duty, in accordance 

with the general sentiment of the American people, . . . to stand 

prepared, upon the contingency of the establishment by her of a 

permanent government, to be the first to welcome independent 

Hungary into the family of nations. For this purpose I invested an 

agent then in Europe with power to declare our willingness 

promptly to recognize her independence in event of her ability to 

sustain it.” (emphasis added)). Whatever Taylor’s uncertainty, it 

sounds alone in stark contrast to otherwise seamless postratification history. 

In addition, Amicus American Jewish Committee supplies 

other examples of Presidential enlistment of the Congress’s 

support. See, e.g., Am. Jewish Committee Amicus Br. at 9-10 

(Washington considered removing diplomatic authority of France’s 

minister and instructed Thomas Jefferson to draft message stating 

he intended to remove Genet’s diplomatic authority unless either 

house objected). None of them acknowledge either expressly or by 

implication that the recognition power was one shared, under the 

Constitution, with the Congress. We are also unpersuaded by 

amicus’s citation to Secretary of State James Buchanan’s 

observation that “recognition is usually effected, either by a 

nomination to, and confirmation by the Senate of a Diplomatic or 

Consular agent to the new Government, or by an act of Congress.” 

1 MOORE’S INT’L L. DIGEST § 75, at 245-46. 

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President has ‘a degree of discretion and freedom from 

statutory restriction which would not be admissible were 

domestic affairs alone involved.’ ” Clinton v. City of New 

York, 524 U.S. 417, 445 (1998) (quoting United States v. 

Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304, 320 (1936)). 

While the President’s foreign affairs powers are not precisely 

defined, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 

579, 634-35 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring), the courts have 

long recognized the President’s presumptive dominance in 

matters abroad. See, e.g., Am. Ins. Ass’n v. Garamendi, 539 

U.S. 396, 415 (2003) (“[O]ur cases have recognized that the 

President has authority to make ‘executive agreements’ with 

other countries, requiring no ratification by the Senate or 

approval by Congress, this power having been exercised since 

the early years of the Republic.”); Youngstown, 343 U.S. at 

610 (President has “vast share of responsibility for the 

conduct of our foreign relations”) (Frankfurter, J., 

concurring); Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763, 789 

(1950) (“President is exclusively responsible” for “conduct of 

diplomatic and foreign affairs”); Legal Assistance for 

Vietnamese Asylum Seekers v. Dep’t of State, 104 F.3d 1349, 

1353 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (“[C]ourts have been wary of secondguessing executive branch decision[s] involving complicated 

foreign policy matters.”). Thus, the Court, echoing the words 

of then-Congressman John Marshall, has described the 

President as the “sole organ of the nation in its external 

relations, and its sole representative with foreign nations.” 

Curtiss-Wright, 299 U.S. at 319 (quoting 10 ANNALS OF 

CONG. 613 (Mar. 7, 1800)). 

The Supreme Court has more than once declared that the 

recognition power lies exclusively with the President. See 

Williams v. Suffolk Ins. Co., 38 U.S. 415, 420 (1839) (“[If] the 

executive branch . . . assume[s] a fact in regard to the 

sovereignty of any island or country, it is conclusive on the 

judicial department[.]”); United States v. Belmont, 301 U.S. 

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25 

324, 330 (1937) (“[T]he Executive had authority to speak as 

the sole organ of th[e] government” in matters of 

“recognition, establishment of diplomatic relations, the 

assignment, and agreements with respect thereto . . . .”); 

Guaranty Trust Co. v. United States, 304 U.S. 126, 138 

(1938) (“We accept as conclusive here the determination of 

our own State Department that the Russian State was 

represented by the Provisional Government . . . .”); United 

States v. Pink, 315 U.S. 203, 229 (1942) (“The powers of the 

President in the conduct of foreign relations included the 

power, without consent of the Senate, to determine the public 

policy of the United States with respect to the Russian 

nationalization decrees. . . . [including t]h[e] authority . . . [to 

determine] the government to be recognized.”); Baker v. 

Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 213 (1962) (“[I]t is the executive that 

determines a person’s status as representative of a foreign 

government.”); Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, 376 

U.S. 398, 410 (1964) (“Political recognition is exclusively a 

function of the Executive.”). To be sure, the Court has not 

held that the President exclusively holds the power. But, for 

us—an inferior court—“carefully considered language of the 

Supreme Court, even if technically dictum, generally must be 

treated as authoritative,” United States v. Dorcely, 454 F.3d 

366, 375 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (quotation marks omitted); see also 

Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 264, 399 (1821) 

(Marshall, C.J.), especially if the Supreme Court has repeated 

the dictum, see Overby v. Nat’l Ass’n of Letter Carriers, 595 

F.3d 1290, 1295 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (Supreme Court dictum is 

“especially” authoritative if “the Supreme Court has 

reiterated the same teaching”). 

In Williams v. Suffolk Insurance Company, the issue 

before the Court was whether “the Falkland islands . . . 

constitute any part of the dominions within the sovereignty of 

the government of Buenos Ayres.” 38 U.S. at 419. The Court 

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26 

decided that the President’s action in the matter was 

“conclusive on the judicial department.” Id. at 420. 

And can there be any doubt, that when the executive 

branch of the government, which is charged with our 

foreign relations, shall in its correspondence with a 

foreign nation assume a fact in regard to the 

sovereignty of any island or country, it is conclusive 

on the judicial department? And in this view it is not 

material to inquire, nor is it the province of the Court 

to determine, whether the executive be right or 

wrong. It is enough to know, that in the exercise of 

his constitutional functions, he has decided the 

question. Having done this under the responsibilities 

which belong to him, it is obligatory on the people 

and government of the Union. 

Id. Similarly, in Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, 

without determining whether the United States had derecognized Cuba’s government under Fidel Castro, the Court 

explained that “[p]olitical recognition is exclusively a 

function of the Executive.” 376 U.S. at 410. The Court 

emphasized that were it to decide for itself whether Cuba had 

been de-recognized, there would be a real “possibility of 

embarrassment to the Executive Branch in handling foreign 

relations.” Id. at 412. 

 President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1933 recognition of the 

Soviet Union led to three cases supporting the conclusion that 

the President exclusively holds the recognition power. 

Belmont, 301 U.S. 324; Guaranty Trust, 304 U.S. 126; Pink, 

315 U.S. 203. On November 16, 1933, the United States 

recognized the Soviet Union as the government of Russia 

“and as an incident to that recognition accepted an assignment 

(known as the Litvinov Assignment) of certain claims.” Pink, 

315 U.S. at 211. Under the Litvinov Assignment, the Soviet 

Union agreed to “take no steps to enforce claims against 

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27 

American nationals; but all such claims were released and 

assigned to the United States.” Belmont, 301 U.S. at 326. 

When the United States sought to collect on the assigned 

claims, its action spawned litigation resulting in the three 

cases. 

 In Belmont, the Court held that New York State’s 

conflicting public policy did not prevent the United States 

from collecting assets assigned by the Litvinov Assignment. 

Id. at 330. It noted that “who is the sovereign of a territory is 

not a judicial question, but one the determination of which by 

the political departments conclusively binds the courts.” Id. at 

328 (emphasis added). But the Court then more specifically 

explained that “recognition, establishment of diplomatic 

relations, the assignment, and agreements with respect 

thereto, were all parts of one transaction” and plainly “within 

the competence of the President.” Id. at 330 (emphasis 

added). Moreover, “in respect of what was done here, the 

Executive had authority to speak as the sole organ of that 

government. The assignment and the agreements in 

connection therewith did not, as in the case of treaties, . . . 

require the advice and consent of the Senate.” Id. (emphases 

added). In other words, the Court not only emphasized the 

President’s exclusive recognition power but also distinguished 

it from the shared treaty power. 

 In Guaranty Trust, the Court held that a United States 

claim for payment of funds held in a bank account formerly 

owned by Russia was barred by New York State’s statute of 

limitations. 304 U.S. at 130, 143-44. In so doing, it relied on 

the Executive branch’s recognition determination: which 

“government is to be regarded here as representative of a 

foreign sovereign state is a political rather than a judicial 

question, and is to be determined by the political department 

of the government. . . . We accept as conclusive here the 

determination of our own State Department that the Russian 

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State was represented by the Provisional Government.” Id. at 

137-38 (emphasis added). 

 Finally, the Supreme Court in Pink, following Belmont,

held that New York State could not “deny enforcement of a 

claim under the Litvinov Assignment because of an 

overriding [state] policy.” Pink, 315 U.S. at 222. The Court 

defined the recognition power broadly and placed it in the 

hands of the President: 

The powers of the President in the conduct of 

foreign relations included the power, without consent 

of the Senate, to determine the public policy of the 

United States with respect to the Russian 

nationalization decrees. . . . That authority is not 

limited to a determination of the government to be 

recognized. It includes the power to determine the 

policy which is to govern the question of recognition. 

Objections to the underlying policy as well as 

objections to recognition are to be addressed to the 

political department and not to the courts. . . . 

Id. at 229 (citations omitted and emphases added). 

 The Court also treated the recognition power as 

belonging exclusively to the Executive in Baker v. Carr. It 

explained that “recognition of [a] foreign government[] so 

strongly defies judicial treatment that without executive

recognition a foreign state has been called a republic of whose 

existence we know nothing.” 369 U.S. at 212 (quotation 

marks and footnote omitted). The Court further explained that 

“the judiciary ordinarily follows the executive as to which 

nation has sovereignty over disputed territory” and that “it is 

the executive that determines a person’s status as 

representative of a foreign government.” Id. at 212-13 

(emphases added). 

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 Zivotofsky relies on United States v. Palmer, 16 U.S. 610 

(1818), where the Court stated that “the courts of the union 

must view [a] newly constituted government as it is viewed 

by the legislative and executive departments of the 

government of the United States.” See id. at 643. But this 

observation simply means that the judiciary will not decide 

the question of recognition. When the High Court has 

discussed the recognition power with more specificity, as it 

did in the above-cited cases, it has not merely stated that the 

judiciary lacks authority to decide the issue but instead has 

explained that the President has the exclusive authority. In 

addition, Zivotofsky’s reliance on Cherokee Nation v. 

Georgia, 30 U.S. 1 (1831), is misplaced as the case dealt with 

the recognition of Indian tribes which, the Cherokee Nation

opinion itself explains, are materially distinct from foreign 

nations. See id. at 18 (Marshall, C.J.); see also Miami Nation 

of Indians of Ind., Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of the Interior, 255 F.3d 

342, 345 (7th Cir. 2001) (“Indian tribes are not foreign 

[states] . . . .”).13

 13 Zivotofsky also cites three other cases he contends indicate 

the recognition power lies with both “political departments.” They 

include: “Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723, 753 (2008) (‘[T]he 

Court has held that questions of sovereignty are for the political 

branches to decide.’); Vermilya-Brown Co. v. Connell, 335 U.S. 

377, 380 (1948) (‘[T]he determination of sovereignty over an area 

is for the legislative and executive departments . . . .’); [and] Jones 

v. United States, 137 U.S. 202, 214 (1890) (‘[A]ll courts of justice 

are bound to take judicial notice of the territorial extent of the 

jurisdiction exercised by the government whose laws they 

administer, or of its recognition or denial of the sovereignty of a 

foreign power, as appearing from the public acts of the legislature 

and executive . . . .’).” Br. for Appellant 43 (emphases in brief). But 

Boumediene, Vermilya-Brown and Jones do not involve the 

recognition of a foreign power; rather, they relate to the authority of 

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30 

Having reviewed the Constitution’s text and structure, 

Supreme Court precedent and longstanding post-ratification 

history, we conclude that the President exclusively holds the 

power to determine whether to recognize a foreign 

sovereign.14

 

the United States over a given territory. Because the Congress has 

the enumerated constitutional power to “make all needful Rules and 

Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to 

the United States,” U.S. CONST., art. IV, § 3, cl. 2, the three cases 

are distinguishable. 

14 Zivotofsky points to early legal scholarship, including a 

treatise written by William Rawle: “The legislature indeed 

possesses a superior power, and may declare its dissent from the 

executive recognition or refusal, but until that sense is declared, the 

act of the executive is binding.” William Rawle, A View of the 

Constitution of the United States of America 195-96 (Philip H. 

Nicklin 2d ed. 1829). In 1833, Justice Joseph Story wrote that the 

recognition question was an “abstract statement[ ] under the 

constitution” that was “still open to discussion.” 2 Joseph Story, 

Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 1566 

(Little & Brown 2d ed. 1851). Moreover, while “[t]he constitution 

has expressly invested the executive with power to receive 

ambassadors, and other ministers[ i]t has not expressly invested 

congress with the power, either to repudiate, or acknowledge 

them.” Id. at 359 (emphasis added). Subsequently, while sitting as a 

Circuit Justice, Justice Story wrote that “[i]t is very clear, that it 

belongs exclusively to the executive department of our government 

to recognize, from time to time, any new governments, which may 

arise in the political revolutions of the world . . . .” Williams v. 

Suffolk Ins. Co., 29 F. Cas. 1402, 1403 (C.C.D. Mass. 1838). 

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C. Section 214(d) and the “Passport Power” vis-à-vis the 

Recognition Power 

Having concluded that the President exclusively holds the 

recognition power, we turn to the “passport power,” pursuant 

to which section 214(d) is alleged to have been enacted. We 

must decide whether the Congress validly exercised its 

passport power in enacting section 214(d) or whether section 

214(d) “impermissibly intrudes” on the President’s exclusive 

recognition power. Zivotofsky V, 132 S. Ct. at 1428. 

Zivotofsky first contends that section 214(d) is a 

permissible exercise of the Congress’s “passport power.” In 

its remand to us, the Supreme Court directed that we examine, 

inter alia, the parties’ evidence regarding “the nature of . . . 

the passport . . . power[ ].” Id. at 1430. Neither party has 

made clear the textual source of the passport power in the 

Constitution, suggesting that it may come from the 

Congress’s power regarding immigration and foreign 

commerce. See, e.g., Oral Arg. Tr. 48-49 (Zivotofsky’s 

counsel noting “there’s no specific power in the Constitution 

that says passports” and referencing the Congress’s authority 

“over immigration[ and] over international commerce”); Br. 

for Appellee 45 (citing U.S. CONST., art. I, § 8, cls. 3, 4). 

Nonetheless, it is clear that the Congress has exercised its 

legislative power to address the subject of passports. It does 

not, however, have exclusive control over all passport 

matters. Rather, the Executive branch has long been involved 

in exercising the passport power, especially if foreign policy 

is implicated. See Haig v. Agee, 453 U.S. 280 (1981). Until 

1856, no passport statute existed and so “the common 

perception was that the issuance of a passport was committed 

to the sole discretion of the Executive and that the Executive 

would exercise this power in the interests of the national 

security and foreign policy of the United States.” Id. at 293. 

After the first passport law was enacted in 1856, “[t]he 

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32 

President and the Secretary of State consistently construed the 

1856 Act to preserve their authority to withhold passports on 

national security and foreign policy grounds.” Id. at 295. And 

once the Congress enacted the Passport Act of 1926, each 

successive President interpreted the Act to give him the 

authority to control the issuance of passports for national 

security or foreign policy reasons: “Indeed, by an unbroken 

line of Executive Orders, regulations, instructions to consular 

officials, and notices to passport holders, the President and the 

Department of State left no doubt that likelihood of damage to 

national security or foreign policy of the United States was 

the single most important criterion in passport decisions.” Id.

at 298 (footnotes omitted and emphasis added); see also 16 

U.S. Op. Off. Legal Counsel 18, 23 (1992) (“Executive action 

to control the issuance of passports in connection with foreign 

affairs has never been seriously questioned.”). 

Zivotofsky relies on Supreme Court precedent that, he 

contends, shows the Executive cannot regulate passports 

unless the Congress has authorized him to do so. In both cases 

cited, the Court held that the Executive branch acted properly 

once the Congress had authorized it to so act. See Haig, 453 

U.S. at 282, 289, 309 (upholding Executive authority to 

revoke passport on national security and foreign policy 

grounds after concluding revocation was authorized by 

Congress); Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U.S. 1, 8 (1965) (upholding 

State Department’s refusal to validate passport for travel to 

Cuba because “the Passport Act of 1926 embodie[d] a grant 

of authority to the Executive” (citation omitted)). But in 

neither case did the Court state that the Congress’s power 

over passports was exclusive. Indeed, in Haig, the Court made 

clear that it did not decide that issue. Haig, 453 U.S. at 289 

n.17 (“In light of our decision on this issue, we have no 

occasion in this case to determine the scope of the very 

delicate, plenary and exclusive power of the President as the 

sole organ of the federal government in the field of 

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33 

international relations—a power which does not require as a 

basis for its exercise an act of Congress . . . .” (quotation 

marks omitted)). Likewise, in Zemel, the Court in effect 

rejected the dissenters’ statements implying that the Congress 

exclusively regulates passports. 381 U.S. at 21 (Black, J., 

dissenting) (“[R]egulation of passports . . . is a law-making—

not an executive, law-enforcing—function . . . .”); id. at 29 

(Goldberg, J., dissenting) (Executive lacks “an inherent power 

to prohibit or impede travel by restricting the issuance of 

passports”). Instead, the Court emphasized that the 

“Congress—in giving the Executive authority over matters of 

foreign affairs—must of necessity paint with a brush broader 

than that it customarily wields in domestic areas.” Id. at 17.15

 15 Amicus Members of the United States Senate and the United 

States House of Representatives rely on the holding in Kent v. 

Dulles, 357 U.S. 116 (1958). In Kent, two citizens successfully 

challenged the Secretary’s denial of their passports—on the ground 

that they refused to state whether they were communists—arguing 

that, inter alia, the denial violated their Fifth Amendment due 

process right of travel. Id. at 117-20, 125. But Kent held, at most, 

that absent congressional authorization, the State Department could 

not deny a passport if the denial violated a constitutional right. See 

id. at 129 (“If [constitutional] liberty is to be regulated, it must be 

pursuant to the lawmaking functions of the Congress.” (quotation 

marks omitted)). Here, the State Department has not denied

Zivotofsky a passport nor does Zivotofsky assert the violation of a 

constitutional right. Moreover, the Court itself has not treated Kent

as if it held that the Executive’s regulation of passports is entirely 

dependent on congressional authorization. See Haig, 453 U.S. at 

289 n.17. For example, in Zemel, the Court distinguished Kent on 

the basis that Kent had invalidated the State Department’s denial 

“based on the character of the particular applicant.” 381 U.S. at 13. 

In contrast, the denial that Zemel upheld was based on “foreign 

policy considerations affecting all citizens”—namely, avoiding the 

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34 

Thus, while the Congress has the power to enact passport 

legislation, its passport power is not exclusive. And if the 

Congress legislates pursuant to its non-exclusive passport 

power in such a way to infringe on Executive authority, the 

legislation presents a separation of powers problem. See, e.g., 

Free Enter. Fund v. Pub. Co. Accounting Oversight Bd., 130 

S. Ct. 3138 (2010) (Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s dual for-cause 

limitations on removal of members of financial oversight 

board unconstitutional on separation of powers ground); 

Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. 714, 769 (1986) (“[E]ven the 

results of the constitutional legislative process may be 

unconstitutional if those results are in fact destructive of the 

scheme of separation-of-powers.”). 

The question we must answer, then, is whether section 

214(d)—which speaks only to passports—nonetheless 

interferes with the President’s exclusive recognition power. 

Zivotofsky contends that section 214(d) causes no such 

interference because of its limited reach, that is, it simply 

regulates one detail of one limited type of passport. But the 

President’s recognition power “is not limited to a 

determination of the government to be recognized”; it also 

“includes the power to determine the policy which is to 

govern the question of recognition.” Pink, 315 U.S. at 229. 

Applying this rule, the Pink Court held that New York State 

policy was superseded by the Litvinov Assignment when the 

policy—which declined to give effect to claims under the 

Litvinov Assignment—“collid[ed] with and subtract[ed] from 

the [President’s recognition] policy” by “tend[ing] to restore 

some of the precise impediments to friendly relations which 

the President intended to remove” with his recognition policy. 

Id. at 231. 

 

danger that travel to Cuba by United States citizens “might involve 

the Nation in dangerous international incidents.” Id. at 13, 15. 

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35 

With the recognition power overlay, section 214(d) is 

not, as Zivotofsky asserts, legislation that simply—and 

neutrally—regulates the form and content of a passport. 

Instead, as the Secretary explains, it runs headlong into a 

carefully calibrated and longstanding Executive branch policy 

of neutrality toward Jerusalem. Since 1948, American 

presidents have steadfastly declined to recognize any foreign 

nation’s sovereignty over that city. The Executive branch has 

made clear that the status of Jerusalem must be decided not 

unilaterally by the United States but in the context of a 

settlement involving all of the relevant parties. See supra pp. 

1-2. The State Department FAM implements the Executive 

branch policy of neutrality by designating how a Jerusalemborn citizen’s passport notes his place of birth. For an 

applicant like Zivotofsky, who was born in Jerusalem after 

1948, the FAM is emphatic: denote the place of birth as 

“Jerusalem.” 7 FAM 1383.5-6 (JA 115); see also 7 FAM 

1383 Ex. 1383.1 pt. II (JA 127) (stating that “Israel” “[d]oes 

not include Jerusalem” and that for applicants born in 

“Jerusalem,” “[d]o not write Israel or Jordan”). In his 

interrogatory responses, the Secretary explained the 

significance of the FAM’s Jerusalem directive: “Any 

unilateral action by the United States that would signal, 

symbolically or concretely, that it recognizes that Jerusalem is 

a city that is located within the sovereign territory of Israel 

would critically compromise the ability of the United States to 

work with Israelis, Palestinians and others in the region to 

further the peace process.” Def.’s Resps. to Pl.’s Interrogs. at 

8-9, Zivotofsky ex rel. Zivotofsky v. Sec’y of State, No. 03-cv1921 (D.D.C. June 5, 2006) (JA 58-59). Furthermore, “[t]he 

Palestinians would view any United States change with 

respect to Jerusalem as an endorsement of Israel’s claim to 

Jerusalem and a rejection of their own.” Id. at 9 (JA 59) 

(emphasis added). Thus, “[w]ithin the framework of this 

highly sensitive, and potentially volatile, mix of political, 

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36 

juridical, and religious considerations, U.S. Presidents have 

consistently endeavored to maintain a strict policy of not 

prejudging the Jerusalem status issue and thus not engaging in 

official actions that would recognize, or might be perceived as 

constituting recognition of, Jerusalem as either the capital city 

of Israel, or as a city located within the sovereign territory of 

Israel.” Id. (emphasis added). “[R]eversal of United States 

policy not to prejudge a central final status issue could 

provoke uproar throughout the Arab and Muslim world and 

seriously damage our relations with friendly Arab and Islamic 

governments, adversely affecting relations on a range of 

bilateral issues, including trade and treatment of Americans 

abroad.” Id. at 11 (JA 61). We find the Secretary’s detailed 

explanation of the conflict between section 214(d) and 

Executive recognition policy compelling, especially given 

“our customary policy to accord deference to the President in 

matters of foreign affairs.” Ameziane v. Obama, 699 F.3d 488, 

494 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (quotation marks omitted); see also

Jama v. Immigration & Customs Enforcement, 543 U.S. 335, 

348 (2005) (noting “our customary policy of deference to the 

President in matters of foreign affairs” that “may implicate 

our relations with foreign powers . . . requir[ing] 

consideration of changing political and economic 

circumstances” (quotation marks omitted)); Rattigan v. 

Holder, 689 F.3d 764, 769 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (finding “the 

government’s arguments quite powerful, especially given the 

deference owed the executive in cases implicating national 

security” (quotation marks omitted)). By attempting to alter 

the State Department’s treatment of passport applicants born 

in Jerusalem, section 214(d) directly contradicts a carefully 

considered exercise of the Executive branch’s recognition 

power. 

 Our reading of section 214(d) as an attempted legislative 

articulation of foreign policy is consistent with the Congress’ 

characterization of the legislation. By its own terms, section 

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37 

214 was enacted to alter United States foreign policy toward 

Jerusalem. The title of section 214 is “United States Policy

with Respect to Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel.” Pub. L. 

No. 107-228 § 214, 116 Stat. at 1365 (emphasis added). 

Section 214(a) explains that “[t]he Congress maintains its 

commitment to relocating the United States Embassy in Israel 

to Jerusalem and urges the President . . . to immediately begin 

the process of relocating the United States Embassy in Israel 

to Jerusalem.” Id. § 214(a), 116 Stat. at 1365-66. The House 

Conference report accompanying the bill that became the 

Foreign Relations Authorization Act explained that section 

214 “contain[ed] four provisions related to the recognition of 

Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.” H.R. Conf. Rep. 107-671 at 123 

(Sept. 23, 2002). Various members of the Congress explained 

that the purpose of section 214(d) was to affect United States 

policy toward Jerusalem and Israel. See 148 CONG. REC. 

H6,649, H6,649 (daily ed. Sept. 25, 2002) (statement of Rep. 

Diaz-Balart) (“This legislation requires compliance with [the 

Jerusalem Embassy Act16] that recognizes Jerusalem as the 

capital of Israel . . . .”); id. at H6,653 (statement of Rep. 

Hyde) (“[The bill] contains provisions to spur compliance 

with [the Jerusalem Embassy Act] recognizing Jerusalem as 

the capital of Israel.”); id. (statement of Rep. Lantos) (“Our 

bill reaffirms United States policy that Jerusalem is the 

undivided and eternal capital of the State of Israel.”); 148 

CONG. REC. S9,401-02, S9,403 (daily ed. Sept. 26, 2002) 

(statement of Sen. Helms) (“This bill . . . . recognize[s] the 

right of Israel to name Jerusalem as its own capit[a]l . . . .”). 

Moreover, as the Secretary averred earlier in this 

litigation, the 2002 enactment of section 214 “provoked 

strong reaction throughout the Middle East, even though the 

 16 The Jerusalem Embassy Act is discussed supra at pp. 3-4. 

USCA Case #07-5347 Document #1447974 Filed: 07/23/2013 Page 37 of 53
38 

President in his signing statement said that the provision 

would not be construed as mandatory and assured that ‘U.S. 

policy regarding Jerusalem has not changed.’ ” Def.’s Resps. 

to Pl.’s Interrogs. at 9-10, Zivotofsky ex rel. Zivotofsky v. 

Sec’y of State, No. 03-cv-1921 (D.D.C. June 5, 2006) (JA 59-

60). For example, various Palestinian groups issued 

statements asserting that section 214 “undermine[d] the role 

of the U.S. as a sponsor of the peace process,” “undervalu[ed] 

. . . Palestinian, Arab and Islamic rights in Jerusalem” and 

“rais[ed] questions about the real position of the U.S. 

Administration vis-à-vis Jerusalem.” Id. at 10 (JA 60) 

(quotation marks omitted). As in Pink, the Secretary’s 

enforcement of section 214(d) “would collide with and 

subtract from the [President’s] policy” by “help[ing] keep 

alive one source of friction” between the United States and 

parties in conflict in the Middle East “which the policy of 

recognition was designed to eliminate.” Pink, 315 U.S. at 

231-32.17

Zivotofsky argues that the Secretary has not suffered—

and will not suffer—adverse foreign policy consequences by 

issuing him a passport that lists his place of birth as Israel. He 

asserts that the Secretary has admitted that, from time to time, 

the State Department has inadvertently issued passports with 

“Israel” as the place of birth to citizens born in Jerusalem and 

that there is no evidence that the issuance of the passports 

 17 Unlike in Pink, here the legislation that conflicts with the 

President’s recognition power was enacted by the Congress, not a 

state. But, as we today hold, the President exclusively exercises the 

recognition power. The Congress, like a state, may not 

impermissibly intrude on an exclusive Executive power. Contrary to 

Zivotofsky’s assertion, then, the fact that the Congress, rather than 

a state legislature, enacted section 214(d) does not distinguish this 

case from Pink.

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39 

resulted in harm to the United States’s foreign policy 

interests. Similarly, Zivotofsky cites State Department records 

that, before revision, referred to “Jerusalem, Israel.” Br. for 

Appellant 14. Likewise, Amicus Zionist Organization of 

America exhaustively catalogues official United States 

websites that contained “Jerusalem, Israel” before recent 

revisions. Zivotofsky further notes that “not a single 

Palestinian or Arab interest group deemed it important enough 

to submit an amicus curiae brief in the Supreme Court 

contending that section 214(d) should not be enforced” nor 

has any such group appeared in our court during this lengthy 

litigation. Appellant’s Reply Br. 3. Zivotofsky also contends 

that the Secretary’s fear of harm is exaggerated because 

section 214(d)’s passport directive is not unlike its Taiwan 

directive that allows an applicant born in Taiwan to specify as 

his birthplace “Taiwan” rather than “China,” which directive 

has been peacefully implemented. Br. for Appellant 54-56.18

Nonetheless, we are not equipped to second-guess the 

Executive regarding the foreign policy consequences of 

section 214(d). See, e.g., Chi. & S. Air Lines v. Waterman S.S. 

Corp., 333 U.S. 103, 111 (1948) (“[T]he very nature of 

executive decisions as to foreign policy is political, not 

judicial . . . . They are decisions of a kind for which the 

Judiciary has neither aptitude, facilities nor responsibility and 

have long been held to belong in the domain of political 

power not subject to judicial intrusion or inquiry.”); see also 

Dep’t of Navy v. Egan, 484 U.S. 518, 529 (1988) (“[F]oreign 

policy [is] the province and responsibility of the Executive.”) 

 18 The State Department included “Taiwan” on passports only 

after determining that doing so was consistent with United States 

policy that Taiwan is a part of China; by contrast, section 214(d) is 

inconsistent with the United States’s policy of neutrality regarding 

Jerusalem. 

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40 

(quotation marks omitted); Haig, 453 U.S. at 292 (“Matters 

intimately related to foreign policy and national security are 

rarely proper subjects for judicial intervention.”). As the 

Executive—the “sole organ of the nation in its external 

relations,” Curtiss-Wright, 299 U.S. at 319—is the one branch 

of the federal government before us19 and both the current 

Executive branch as well as its predecessor believe that 

section 214(d) would cause adverse foreign policy 

consequences (and in fact presented evidence that it had 

caused foreign policy consequences), that view is conclusive 

on us. Cf. United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 710 (1974) 

(“[T]he courts have traditionally shown the utmost deference 

to Presidential responsibilities . . . . involving foreign policy 

considerations . . . .”). Moreover, Zivotofsky’s reliance on the 

State Department’s earlier, incidental references to 

“Jerusalem, Israel” or inclusion of “Israel” on the passports of 

United States citizens born in Jerusalem is entirely misplaced. 

The controversy does not arise because a website or passport 

at one time included a reference connecting Jerusalem and 

Israel. Rather, the unconstitutional intrusion results from 

section 214(d)’s attempted alteration of United States policy 

to require the State Department to take an official and 

intentional action to include “Israel” on the passport of a 

United States citizen born in Jerusalem. While the fact that 

legislation merely touches on a policy relating to recognition 

does not make it unconstitutional, section 214(d) does not do 

so; instead the Congress plainly intended to force the State 

Department to deviate from its decades-long position of 

neutrality on what nation or government, if any, is sovereign 

over Jerusalem. Accordingly, we conclude that section 214(d) 

 19 While an amicus brief has been submitted on behalf of six 

senators and fifty-seven representatives, they of course do not speak 

for the Congress qua the Congress. 

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41 

impermissibly intrudes on the President’s recognition power 

and is therefore unconstitutional. 

D. Zivotofsky’s Remaining Arguments 

 Zivotofsky challenges the Secretary’s decision declining 

to enforce section 214(d) on two additional grounds but we 

find both grounds without merit. 

 First, Zivotofsky contends that section 214(d) remedies 

the State Department’s discriminatory policy against 

supporters of Israel. He notes that an individual born in Tel 

Aviv or Haifa after 1948 may list as his place of birth either 

“Israel” or his local birthplace if he objects to including 

“Israel.” See 7 FAM 1383.5-4 (JA 114). An individual born in 

Jerusalem after 1948, as we have discussed, may not choose 

between a country and a locality; rather, his place of birth 

must be listed as “Jerusalem.” See 7 FAM 1383.5-6 (JA 115). 

Zivotofsky laments that “[n]o matter where in Jerusalem an 

American citizen may be born . . . he or she does not have the 

option given to American citizens born in Tel Aviv or Haifa 

to choose whether to record the country or city of birth.” Br. 

for Appellant 57. We do not decide the merits of this 

contention because Zivotofsky did not make it in district court 

and it is therefore waived. See, e.g., Jicarilla Apache Nation 

v. U.S. Dep’t of Interior, 613 F.3d 1112, 1117 (D.C. Cir. 

2010). 

Second, Zivotofsky argues that President George W. 

Bush’s signing statement—indicating that section 214 is, in 

his view, unconstitutional—is invalid because he should have 

instead vetoed the enactment to register his objection. The 

signing statement is irrelevant. Even if the signing statement 

were before us and we were somehow to find it wanting, that 

conclusion would have no effect on the Secretary’s 

enforcement of section 214(d) today. 

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42 

* * * * 

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the 

district court dismissing the complaint on the alternative 

ground that section 214(d) impermissibly infringes on the 

President’s exercise of the recognition power reposing 

exclusively in him under the Constitution and is therefore 

unconstitutional.20

So ordered.

 20 The district court dismissed Zivotofsky’s complaint on the 

ground that it presented a nonjusticiable political question. 

Zivotofsky III, 511 F. Supp. 2d at 99. While the district court did not 

reach the merits, we need not remand because no factual 

development is necessary to decide the case. See, e.g., Timbisha 

Shoshone Tribe v. Salazar, 678 F.3d 935, 938 (D.C. Cir. 2012). 

USCA Case #07-5347 Document #1447974 Filed: 07/23/2013 Page 42 of 53
TATEL, Circuit Judge, concurring: Although I concur fully 

in the court’s opinion, I write separately to elucidate my 

thinking about the important and novel separation-of-powers 

question this case presents. The Secretary’s argument that 

Section 214(d) is unconstitutional turns on two subsidiary 

arguments: first, that the power to recognize foreign sovereigns

belongs to the President alone; and second, that Section 214(d) 

interferes with the President’s exclusive exercise of that power. 

But I think it best to begin with an issue that underlies and helps 

frame these recognition power questions, namely, Congress’s 

so-called passport power. 

I. 

It is beyond dispute that Congress’s immigration, foreign 

commerce, and naturalization powers authorize it to regulate 

passports. See Court’s Op. at 31–34; Secretary’s Br. at 45–46 

(acknowledging that “Congress . . . has the constitutional 

authority to generally regulate the form and content of passports 

in furtherance of its enumerated powers”). Zivotofsky would 

have us stop there. He reasons that because Congress has the 

power to regulate passports and because Section 214(d) is 

passport legislation, the statute is constitutional. This argument, 

however, overlooks the independent limitations the Constitution 

imposes even on legislation within Congress’s enumerated 

powers. That is, a statute that Congress would otherwise have 

authority to enact may still run up against some independent 

restriction on its power. For example, the Commerce Clause 

authorizes Congress to regulate interstate communications, but 

a communications statute may nevertheless run afoul of the 

First Amendment. See, e.g., Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844 

(1997) (holding that anti-indecency provisions of the 

Communications Decency Act violated the First Amendment). 

The fact that Congress has affirmative authority to regulate 

passports thus does not resolve the question of whether Section 

214(d) comports with the separation of powers. It does, 

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2

however, help frame the quite narrow constitutional question 

we must answer. Congress has authority to regulate passports;

we need only decide whether this particular exercise of that 

authority, Section 214(d), infringes on the Executive’s 

recognition power.

II.

As I noted at the outset, in order to demonstrate that 

Section 214(d) is unconstitutional the Secretary must begin by 

establishing that the recognition power in fact inheres 

exclusively in the President. This is because, as the court

explains, see Court’s Op. at 11–12, a President may “take[ ]

measures incompatible with the expressed . . . will of Congress” 

only when he acts pursuant to an “exclusive” Executive power. 

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 637–38

& n.4 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring). If the Constitution 

entrusts the recognition power exclusively to the President, as 

the Secretary claims, there remains the even more difficult 

question of whether Section 214(d) intrudes upon his exercise 

of that power. In resolving both questions, we find ourselves in 

relatively uncharted waters with few fixed stars by which to 

navigate. 

A.

I have little to add to the court’s thorough discussion of 

whether the Constitution endows the President with exclusive 

power to recognize foreign sovereigns. As the court details, 

there is scant constitutional text to guide us and little 

contemporaneous evidence of the Framers’ intent. See Court’s 

Op. at 14–17. Moreover, although the court thoroughly recounts 

the historical precedents each side marshals in support of its 

position, see id. at 17–22, the most striking thing about this 

retelling is what is absent from it: a situation like this one, 

where the President and Congress disagree about a recognition

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3

question. To be sure, throughout our history Congress has often 

acquiesced in a President’s unilateral recognition of a foreign 

sovereign. See, e.g., id. at 17–18 (detailing President George 

Washington’s recognition of France’s post-revolutionary 

government). And on a few occasions, a President has

voluntarily coordinated with Congress regarding a recognition 

decision. See, e.g., id. at 21–22 (pointing to President Abraham 

Lincoln’s request that Congress endorse his recognition of 

Liberia and Haiti). But neither party (nor any of the amici) 

points to any time in our history when the President and 

Congress have clashed over an issue of recognition. 

Given all that, it is unsurprising that the Supreme Court has 

had no occasion to definitively resolve the political branches’ 

competing claims to recognition power. True, the Court has 

consistently and clearly stated that courts have no authority to 

second-guess recognition decisions. See, e.g., Williams v. 

Suffolk Insurance Co., 38 U.S. 415, 420 (1839). And in so 

doing, it has often referred to the recognition power as inhering 

exclusively in the Executive. See, e.g., Banco Nacional de Cuba 

v. Sabbatino, 376 U.S. 398, 410 (1964) (“Political recognition 

is exclusively a function of the Executive.”). That said, the 

Court has also occasionally suggested that Congress and the 

President share that power. See, e.g. Jones v. United States, 137 

U.S. 202, 212 (1890) (“Who is the sovereign . . . of a territory, 

is not a judicial, but a political, question, the determination of 

which by the legislative and executive departments . . . 

conclusively binds the judges . . . .”). Significantly for our 

purposes, the Court has made many more statements falling in 

the former category than in the latter. But still and again, the 

Court has never squarely resolved the precise question we face

today. 

To say that the question has yet to be conclusively 

answered, however, is not to say—at least from the 

USCA Case #07-5347 Document #1447974 Filed: 07/23/2013 Page 45 of 53
4

perspective of this “inferior” court—that the answer is 

unclear. All told, given the great weight of historical and legal 

precedent and given that “carefully considered language of 

the Supreme Court, even if technically dictum, generally must 

be treated as authoritative,” United States v. Oakar, 111 F.3d 

146, 153 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (internal quotation marks omitted), 

we are compelled to conclude that “[p]olitical recognition is 

exclusively a function of the Executive,” Sabbatino, 376 U.S. 

at 410. Indeed, all three of our colleagues who considered this 

question the last time this case was before us agreed. See 

Zivotofsky v. Secretary of State, 571 F.3d 1227, 1231 (D.C. 

Cir. 2009), vacated and remanded by Zivotofsky v. Clinton, 

132 S. Ct. 1421 (2012); id. at 1240 (Edwards, J., concurring). 

To hold otherwise, we would have to disregard not only their 

considered views, but also the Supreme Court’s repeated 

statements to the same effect, see e.g., Goldwater v. Carter,

444 U.S. 996, 1007 (1979) (Brennan, J., dissenting) (“Our 

cases firmly establish that the Constitution commits to the 

President alone the power to recognize, and withdraw 

recognition from, foreign regimes.” (citing Sabbatino, 376 

U.S. at 410; Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 212 (1962); United 

States v. Pink, 315 U.S. 203, 228–30 (1942))), as well as

centuries of largely consistent historical practice, see Court’s 

Op. at 17–22. Moreover, in light of the President’s “primary 

responsibility for the conduct of our foreign affairs,” New 

York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713, 741 (1971),

locating the recognition power in the Executive branch 

conforms to our broader constitutional design.

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5

B.

The critical question, then, is whether Section 214(d) in

fact infringes on the President’s exclusive authority to 

recognize foreign sovereigns. The Secretary’s position is 

straightforward: By preventing passport holders from 

identifying a place of birth that conflicts with the President’s 

recognition determinations, the Secretary’s place-of-birth policy

implicates recognition. This is all the more evident in the 

context of Jerusalem. As Judge Edwards put it, “The 

Secretary’s rules regarding the designation of Jerusalem on 

passports . . . plainly implement the Executive’s determination 

not to recognize Jerusalem as part of any sovereign regime.” 

Zivotofsky, 571 F.3d at 1241–42 (Edwards, J., concurring). 

Given that the Secretary’s place-of-birth policy implicates the 

recognition power and given that Section 214(d) displaces that 

policy, the Secretary reasons, the statute unconstitutionally 

intrudes on the President’s recognition power.

Zivotofsky sees things differently. His first and broadest 

contention is that the President’s recognition power, even if 

exclusive, does not include the power to determine whether 

certain territory belongs to a particular foreign state. The 

recognition power may give the President authority to decide 

whether to recognize a foreign entity as a sovereign, he argues, 

but it includes no authority to determine that sovereign state’s 

territorial boundaries. This line of argument falls well short of 

its mark. The power to recognize a sovereign state’s territorial 

boundaries is a necessary corollary to the power to recognize a 

sovereign in the first place. For instance, recognizing an 

established sovereign’s former colony as a new, independent 

sovereign seems a straightforward exercise of what even 

Zivotofsky would concede to be the recognition power. But 

such recognition necessarily entails a boundary determination—

the colony, once formally recognized as part of one sovereign’s 

territory, is effectively recognized as belonging to another. 

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6

Indeed, precedent binding on this court confirms that the 

recognition power includes authority to determine territorial 

boundaries. See, e.g., Baker, 369 U.S. at 212 (“[T]he judiciary 

ordinarily follows the executive as to which nation has 

sovereignty over disputed territory . . . .”); Pink, 315 U.S. at 

229–30 (holding that the recognition power is “not limited to a 

determination of the government to be recognized,” but rather 

includes the power to take actions without which “the power of 

recognition might be thwarted”); Williams, 38 U.S. at 420

(“[W]hen the executive branch of the government . . . assume[s] 

a fact in regard to the sovereignty of any island or country, it is 

conclusive on the judicial department[.]”). 

Zivotofsky’s narrower argument, powerfully developed in

amicus briefs submitted by members of Congress and the AntiDefamation League, is much stronger. Letting Jerusalem-born 

individuals choose to designate “Israel” as their place of birth, 

he contends, neither effects a recognition of Israel’s sovereignty 

over Jerusalem nor otherwise interferes with the President’s 

recognition power. As he emphasizes, nothing in Section 214(d) 

requires the Secretary to list “Israel” as the place of birth for all 

Jerusalem-born U.S. citizens. Rather, it merely enables those 

Jerusalem-born citizens who support Israel to choose to 

designate their place of birth consistently with that view. Aside 

from the Secretary’s say-so, Zivotofsky goes on to argue, there 

is simply no reason to conclude that the statute’s limited 

interference with the way the Secretary records a passport 

holder’s place of birth implicates the recognition power. Nor is 

there reason to believe that implementing Section 214(d) would 

adversely affect foreign policy. Because affected passports

would list “Israel”—not “Jerusalem, Israel”—observers would 

discern no U.S. policy identifying Jerusalem as part of Israel.

What makes this case difficult is that Zivotofsky is partly 

right. As the Secretary concedes, see Secretary’s Br. at 53 n.13, 

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a primary purpose of the place-of-birth field is to enable the 

government to identify particular individuals—e.g., by 

distinguishing one Jane Doe from another born the very same 

day. And the fact that the Secretary permits individuals to 

choose to list a city or area of birth instead of a country of birth 

does tend to suggest that its place-of-birth policy is also about

personal identity. 

That the Secretary’s policy is about identification and 

personal identity, however, does not mean that it does not also 

implicate recognition. In fact, it clearly does. Over the years, 

the Secretary has been incredibly consistent on this point: in no 

circumstances—including circumstances beyond the Jerusalem 

issue—can an individual opt for a place-of-birth designation 

inconsistent with United States recognition policy. See 7 FAM 

1383.5–1383.7. For example, because the United States never 

recognized the Soviet Union’s annexation of Latvia, Lithuania, 

and Estonia, the Secretary “did not authorize entry of ‘U.S.S.R.’ 

or the ‘Soviet Union’ as a place of birth” for people born in 

these areas. 7 FAM 1340 Appx. D. Zivotofsky identifies no 

deviation from this policy, nor am I aware of one. The Taiwan 

directive to which Zivotofsky repeatedly points only 

underscores the Secretary’s consistency. Because the United 

States recognizes Taiwan as an area within China, permitting 

individuals to list “Taiwan” as their place of birth comports 

with the Secretary’s general policy. Moreover, one cannot

possibly read the Foreign Affairs Manual’s application of that 

policy to Jerusalem as anything but an attempt to maintain 

consistency between the place-of-birth field and the President’s 

decision to recognize no sovereign’s claim to that city.

That the Secretary accommodates identity preferences to 

the extent they are consistent with recognition policy does little 

to undermine his position that the place-of-birth field in fact 

implicates recognition. The Secretary has consistently walked a 

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careful line, permitting individual choice where possible while 

still ensuring consistency with foreign policy. Because the 

Secretary’s policy is about both identification and recognition, 

Congress could probably pass some laws about the place-ofbirth field that do not interfere with the recognition power. For 

instance, Congress might be able to do little things, like require 

that the place of birth be listed in a particular font. It might even 

be able to do bigger things, like eliminate the place-of-birth 

field all together. Although doing so would inhibit 

identification of passport holders, it would not seem to interfere 

with the President’s recognition power.

But in enacting Section 214(d), Congress did intrude on the 

recognition power. The statute seeks to abrogate the Secretary’s 

longstanding practice of precluding place-of-birth designations

that are inconsistent with U.S. recognition policy. According to 

the Secretary, Section 214(d) would also have consequences for 

the President’s carefully guarded neutrality on the question of 

Jerusalem. Although Zivotfosky challenges the President’s 

judgment that adverse foreign policy consequences would flow 

from implementing Section 214(d), he offers no reason why the 

President’s exercise of his constitutional power to recognize 

foreign sovereigns should hinge on a showing of adverse 

consequences. Even more importantly, courts are not in the 

business of second-guessing the President’s reasonable foreign 

policy judgments, cf., e.g., Chicago & Southern Air Lines, Inc. 

v. Waterman S.S. Corp., 333 U.S. 103, 111 (1948), and this one 

is perfectly reasonable. After all, “[a] passport is, in a sense, a 

letter of introduction in which the issuing sovereign vouches for 

the bearer.” Haig v. Agee, 453 U.S. 280, 292 (1981). And it is 

certainly plausible, as the Secretary insists, that Americanissued passports listing “Israel” as the place of birth for 

Jerusalem-born citizens could disrupt decades of considered

neutrality on the Jerusalem question. 

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If this were all we had—only the Secretary’s reasonable 

judgment that Section 214(d) infringes on the Executive’s 

exclusive recognition power—it might well be enough. After 

all, the Supreme Court has held that the recognition power 

“includes the power to determine the policy which is to govern 

the question of recognition.” Pink, 315 U.S. at 229. But there is 

more. As it turns out, this is not a case in which we must choose 

between the President’s characterization of a statute as 

implicating recognition and Congress’s contrary view. Indeed, 

Congress was quite candid about what it was doing when it 

enacted Section 214(d). That subsection is part of a provision 

titled “United States policy with respect to Jerusalem as the 

capital of Israel.” Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal 

Year 2003, Pub. L. No. 107-228 § 214, 116 Stat. 1365 (2002). 

The other sections under that heading are not about passports, 

they are about recognizing Jerusalem as part of—indeed, as the 

capital of—Israel. See id. And the legislative history makes 

doubly clear that recognition was Congress’s goal. See H.R. 

Conf. Rep. No. 107-671, at 123 (Sept. 23, 2002) (explaining 

that Section 214 “contains four provisions related to the 

recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital” (emphasis added)); 

see also Court’s Op. at 36–37 (highlighting similar statements 

by various members of Congress). 

So in the end, this is a separation-of-powers dispute in 

which both branches involved in the struggle actually agree. 

Congress intended Section 214(d) to alter recognition policy 

with respect to Jerusalem, and the President sees it the same 

way. Our decision makes us the third and final branch to reach 

this conclusion. And because the recognition power belongs 

exclusively to the President, that means Section 214(d) is 

unconstitutional.

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III.

Although the foregoing analysis largely resolves this 

case, there is one loose end I think merits mention: 

Zivotofsky’s argument that the Secretary’s place-of-birth 

policy discriminates against supporters of Israel. In its most 

effective formulation, I take the point as follows: Under the 

Secretary’s policy, supporters of Palestine born in Tel Aviv 

can use their passports to signal their rejection of Israel’s 

claim to sovereignty by choosing to list “Tel Aviv” instead of 

“Israel” as their place of birth. By contrast, supporters of 

Israel born in Jerusalem cannot use their passports to signal

their view that Jerusalem is part of Israel. Thus, the policy 

discriminates against Israel supporters, and Section 214(d) 

remedies that discrimination. 

To the extent this is an independent claim that the 

Secretary’s policy is discriminatory, I agree it is waived. See 

Court’s Op. at 41. To the extent the argument is that Section 

214(d) is constitutional because it remedies unlawful 

discrimination, such argument cannot overcome the 

recognition power problem for the same reason the passport 

power argument cannot: legislation Congress would otherwise 

have authority to enact may still run afoul of an independent 

constitutional restraint on congressional action. 

I nonetheless think it important to note that the policy is 

not discriminatory. Indeed, unlike Section 214(d), which 

permits Jerusalem-born Israel supporters to list “Israel” as 

their place of birth but allows no parallel option for 

Jerusalem-born Palestine supporters, the State Department’s 

Foreign Affairs Manual establishes a facially neutral policy 

that permits individuals to list their city or area of birth in lieu 

of their country of birth. See 7 FAM 1383.5-2; 7 FAM 

1383.6(a). The policy applies universally—not just in the 

context of Jerusalem—and treats Israel and Palestine 

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supporters identically. Jerusalem-born Americans, whether 

supporters of Israel or supporters of Palestine, may not use 

their passports to make a political statement. And that is 

because permitting a Jerusalem-born individual to list “Israel”

or “Palestine” would contradict the President’s decision to 

recognize neither entity’s sovereignty over Jerusalem.

True, as Zivotofsky emphasizes with his Tel Aviv 

example, individuals born within territory the United States 

has recognized as belonging to Israel can choose either to list 

“Israel” as their place of birth or instead to list a city or area

of birth. Israel supporters may list “Israel,” and Palestine 

supporters may list something more specific. But although the 

political nature of the latter choice may be clearer insomuch 

as it marks a deviation from the default country-of-birth rule, 

that is an unintended consequence of a neutral policy. Indeed, 

were the United States to recognize the West Bank as the 

sovereign state of Palestine, the same would be true of Israel 

supporters born therein. That is, Palestine supporters could list 

“Palestine,” and Israel supporters could make the more 

obviously political choice to list their city or area of birth. It is 

only because the United States has not recognized any 

Palestinian territory that there currently exists no clear 

analogy to Zivotofsky’s Tel Aviv scenario. 

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