M.B.Z. vs. Clinton

Whether courts can enforce a federal statute governing how the Secretary of State is to record the birthplace of American citizens on passports and related documents; and whether a federal law instructing the Secretary of State, if requested to do so, to record the birthplace of U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem as Israel interferes with the President's authority under the Constitution to recognize foreign nations. Some facts about this is even though Israel was declared a state in 1948, the U.S. government has declined to recognize Jerusalem as the capital, deeming this a question to be resolved through diplomacy. In 2002, Congress passed a law that provided that "for purposes of the registration of birth … or issuance of a passport of a United States citizen born in the city of Jerusalem, the Secretary (of State) shall, upon request … record the place of birth as Israel." A passport is not today considered a diplomatic statement; it's an identification of a person in order to enable him to travel abroad. The petitioner in the case, M.B.Z., was born in Jerusalem to U.S.-citizen parents in 2002.  Although his parents asked the State Department to designate Israel as their son’s place of birth on his passport, it declined to do so despite Congress’s command to the contrary. When the parents took the issue to the courts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit dismissed their claim on the ground that it raised a nonjusticiable political question:  the court of appeals explained that the “judiciary has no authority to order the Executive Branch to change the nation’s foreign policy” with respect to whether Jerusalem is part of Israel.