Nguyen v. Holder

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has asked us whether a marriage between a half uncle and half niece is void as incestuous under Domestic Relations Law § 5 (3). I agree, for the following reasons, that we should answer that it is not.

I

Petitioner is a citizen of Vietnam. In January of 2000, at the age of 19, she was married in Rochester, New York to Vu Truong, who was 24 and a naturalized American citizen. Later that year, petitioner was granted the status of a conditional permanent resident in the United States on the basis of her marriage.

According to the factual…