Politics
A Los Angeles man was denied a green card over his tattoos. The Supreme Court might take up his case
Prominent Los Angeles civil rights attorney Sandra Muñoz spent her eighth Christmas countries apart from her husband, Luis Acensio Cordero, after the federal government denied him a visa, in part, over his tattoos.
The black ink images of La Virgen de Guadalupe, theater masks, a pair of dice and Ace playing cards were throwbacks to his high school days. But to government officials conducting a body search, the tattoos showed he was an MS-13 gang member.
Sandra Muñoz holds a photo of her husband Luis Acensio Cordero.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
The couple sued, securing a victory in California’s 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, only to have that decision challenged by the Biden administration. Now the case is headed to the Supreme Court.
On Friday, justices are scheduled to review the case and decide whether to take it up. If they decline, the appeals court decision would stand and Acensio’s lawyers believe he would likely be allowed to return to live in the U.S. for the first time in nine years.
The outcome of the case could have ripple effects for immigrants like Acensio because it’s so rare to win challenges to the government’s visa denials. But his attorneys fear that if the Supreme Court sides with the Biden administration, former President Trump, if reelected, would use the decision, and the underlying authority, to justify blanket bans of people from certain countries, as he did during his first term.
Acensio, now 47, was undocumented when he met Muñoz in 2008 at a wedding. They married two years later and in 2013 he filed for a green card.
In 2015, Acensio returned to El Salvador for what the couple believed was the final security screening and an interview at the U.S. consulate. He expected to be in El Salvador only a few weeks, so Muñoz met him there and booked their return flights back home to L.A. together.
He remembers vividly the day of the interview, being asked to take his clothes off, having photos taken of his tattoos and being asked why he got them. On his chest, one features comedy and tragedy theater masks with a set of dice and three Ace cards. The others are of La Virgen de Guadalupe, a profile of Sigmund Freud and a tribal design with a paw print.
A consular officer asked about his criminal history, and Acensio said he described the only time he’d been arrested, when he and a friend got into a fight. They spent three days in jail and were released without charge.
After the interview, Muñoz spent the rest of the week desperately checking her email. “That email never came and I had to come back alone,” she said. “The first of many trips back alone.”
The government’s denial arrived six months later, saying Acensio would likely engage in unlawful activity if allowed back in the U.S.
A State Department spokesperson declined to comment to The Times because of pending litigation.
In court proceedings, consular officials argued they didn’t owe the family an explanation and there was no way to appeal because of the doctrine of consular non-reviewability, which prevents judicial reviews of visa determinations made by consular officers as long as the decision is “facially legitimate and bona fide.”
Sandra Muñoz is a civil rights attorney in Los Angeles.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
In certain cases, a U.S. citizen who proves they were harmed by the denial can challenge the doctrine. Immigration attorney Alan Diamante, Muñoz’s friend from law school, took on the case.
They filed a lawsuit in 2017 in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California challenging the constitutionality of Acensio’s denial. Humberto Guizar, a lawyer and court-approved gang expert who has testified in 50 cases, submitted a declaration stating that he is intimately familiar with gang tattoos and that Acensio had none.
The couple learned in 2018 that the federal government believed Acensio was a member of MS-13, the Salvadoran criminal gang that started in Los Angeles in the ’80s, according to court documents. That determination, lawyers wrote, was based on the in-person interview, a criminal review and a review of his tattoos. Reviews of the visa denial by the consulate and State Department had not “revealed any grounds to change the finding of inadmissibility.”
Eric Lee, their lead attorney, said tattoos are a common reason for visa denials. In Acensio’s case, Lee said he isn’t sure whether the consular officer acted based solely on the tattoos or whether foreign databases had provided erroneous information about his background.
As the case made its way through the courts, Acensio and Muñoz settled into separate lives. He started a business in El Salvador giving electric four-wheeler bike tours. She was named California Lawyer of the Year by the Daily Journal after helping secure a $23-million settlement against Walmart and other companies on behalf of warehouse workers.
She bought a house in Montebello and decorated it with photos of her and Acensio, vowing that one day it would be his home, too.
Acensio was separated not only from his wife, but also from his young daughter, who lives in Las Vegas and whom he would frequently visit. She is now 17, and he has missed seeing her grow up.
Muñoz, 54, has also faced difficulties. She got COVID-19 and suffered from brain fog and fatigue for several months. Her sister and her best friend died in 2021. She fell and tore a quad tendon in 2022, was hospitalized for weeks and still uses a cane to walk. Then her mother’s health began to deteriorate; she died a week before Christmas.
“It was so sad because I had built my life there with her,” Acensio said. “And I’ve never been there as her husband to help her in the most difficult moments. I feel helpless.”
Still, the couple found ways to stay connected. They text throughout the day and frequently do video calls. They traveled to Barcelona together, and her visits to El Salvador deepened her relationship with his family.
Muñoz visited Acensio at least three times a year until the pandemic started. In 2022, he received a Mexican visitor visa and they were able to meet in Tijuana. Their last trip was in May.
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele launched a sweeping crackdown against the country’s powerful street gangs, netting more than 70,000 arrests since 2022. Muñoz feared her husband would get caught in the dragnet.
Acensio said police stopped him last year at a checkpoint, looked over his body and let him go. If they believed he was involved with gangs, he said, they would have jailed him.
In October 2022, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the federal government had violated Muñoz’s fundamental right to marriage and due process as a U.S. citizen by denying her husband’s visa without providing an explanation for three years. That decision marked the first time a federal judge had rejected the government’s initial effort to dismiss a lawsuit by citing consular non-reviewability, Lee said.
Lee said he has since advised on similar cases, including four that have resulted in family reunification. Earlier this year, a judge in Arkansas cited Muñoz’s case in a ruling ordering the federal government to provide a better explanation for denying the visa of a U.S. citizen’s foreign husband.
After the appeals court ruling, Acensio applied for humanitarian parole, a form of temporary legal entry, to reunite with his wife. The State Department informed Muñoz’s lawyers that they would not oppose the application. Even so, it was denied last month.
In its petition to the Supreme Court, Biden administration lawyers echoed previous circuit court decisions in arguing that Muñoz’s right to marriage has not been violated because the government “has done nothing more than to say that the residence of one of the marriage partners may not be in the United States.”
Government lawyers argued the 9th Circuit ruling “represents a serious encroachment on the separation of powers. If allowed to stand, it will cause considerable disruption in U.S. consulates.”
Heidi Altman, policy director at the National Immigrant Justice Center, which is co-counsel on the Supreme Court case, said that Acensio and Muñoz’s case is an example of the Biden administration walking away from its commitment to immigrants. It also shows how central family separation is to the U.S. immigration system, she said.
“Fighting this case means really digging in on one particular way that family separation is regularly effectuated by immigration officers,” who ensure there is “no way to correct those mistakes, so that the family separation becomes permanent,” Altman said.
A similar case made its way to the Supreme Court in 2015. A man who had been employed in Afghanistan’s welfare department when the Taliban ruled the country was denied a green card after marrying a U.S. citizen, because the government reasoned he was engaged in terrorist activity.
In that case, the 9th Circuit had also ruled that the government didn’t offer a legitimate enough reason for the denial. But the Supreme Court ultimately ruled against the couple.
The notion that Acensio is a gang member is offensive, Muñoz said. As an attorney, she said, she’s naturally skeptical. And as an officer of the court, she’s sworn to uphold the Constitution.
“It just breaks my heart that this country — that my country — has taken so much from my husband and me,” she said.
Muñoz thinks back to a discrimination case she litigated in which she represented a Latino Los Angeles Sheriff’s deputy who was referred to by supervisors as the “Mexican Mafia.” The county responded by claiming he was in a deputy gang based solely on his tattoo, she recalled.
“A tattoo in and of itself doesn’t mean that somebody is a bad cop, a bad person,” she said. “You can’t simplify it that much. We went to trial in that case. We won.”
In interviews with Vanity Fair, Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, said Trump “has an alcoholic’s personality,” called JD Vance a “conspiracy theorist” and concluded that Pam Bondi “completely whiffed” the early handling of the Epstein files.
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The Trump administration argued in a court filing on Monday that pausing construction on the new White House ballroom would undermine national security, citing a Secret Service declaration warning that halting work would leave the site unable to meet “safety and security requirements” needed to protect the president.
The declaration says the White House’s East Wing, demolished in October and now undergoing below-grade work, cannot be left unfinished without compromising essential security measures.
“Accordingly, any pause in construction, even temporarily, would leave the contractor’s obligation unfulfilled in this regard and consequently hamper the Secret Service’s ability to meet its statutory obligations and protective mission,” reads the filing in part.
The government’s memorandum was in response to a lawsuit filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit that says it advocates for preserving historic sites of national importance and protecting the public’s role in that process.
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An excavator works to clear rubble after the East Wing of the White House was demolished on October 23, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Eric Lee/Getty Images)
The National Trust lawsuit targets key government officials responsible for overseeing the White House grounds and the agencies managing the construction project, including the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior.
It argues that pausing the Trump administration’s ballroom project is essential to prevent irreversible changes while the required oversight and public involvement procedures are carried out.
“Submitting the project to the National Capital Planning Commission for review protects the iconic historic features of the White House campus as it evolves. Inviting comments from the American people signals respect and helps ensure a lasting legacy that befits a government of the people, by the people, for the people,” said Carol Quillen, the president and CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
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A McCrery Architects rendering provided by the White House of the exterior of the new ballroom. (White House)
The White House announced President Donald Trump’s plans in July to move forward with a 90,000-square-foot state ballroom that would cost an estimated $200 million. That figure has now risen to at least $300 million, and while the project is backed by some private donors, Trump has also insisted it will be funded “100% by me and some friends of mine.”
In its filing, the administration emphasized that key regulatory reviews are forthcoming, saying it plans to submit draft architectural drawings and materials to the National Capital Planning Commission and the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts in the coming weeks.
The government argued the lawsuit is premature because above-grade construction is not scheduled to begin until April 2026.
A McCrery Architects rendering provided by the White House of the new ballroom. (The White House)
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The National Trust, however, counters that the scale of the project makes early intervention necessary. In its lawsuit, the group argues that the 90,000-square-foot addition would dwarf the Executive Residence and permanently upset the classical balance of the White House’s design.
The complaint also cites an October statement from the Society of Architectural Historians, which warned that the proposed ballroom would represent the most significant exterior change to the building in more than 80 years.
Hours after Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, were found dead in their home in what is shaping up to be a heartbreaking family tragedy, our president blamed Reiner for his own death.
“A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS,” President Trump wrote on his social media platform. “He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”
Then, in the Oval Office, Trump doubled down on Reiner.
“He was a deranged person,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question about his social media post. “I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all, in any way, shape or form. I thought he was very bad for our country.”
Rest in peace, indeed.
It’s a message steeped in cruelty and delusion, unbelievable and despicable even by the low, buried-in-the-dirt bar by which we have collectively come to judge Trump. In a town — and a time — of selfishness and self-serving, Reiner was one of the good guys, always fighting, both through his films and his politics, to make the world kinder and closer. And yes, that meant fighting against Trump and his increasingly erratic and authoritarian rule.
For years, Reiner made the politics of inclusion and decency central to his life. He was a key player in overturning California’s ban on same-sex marriage and fought to expand early childhood education.
For the last few months, he was laser-focused on the upcoming midterms as the last and best chance of protecting American democracy — which clearly enraged Trump.
“Make no mistake, we have a year before this country becomes a full on autocracy,” Reiner told MSNBC host Ali Velshi in October. “People care about their pocketbook issues, the price of eggs. They care about their healthcare, and they should. Those are the things that directly affect them. But if they lose their democracy, all of these rights, the freedom of speech, the freedom to pray the way you want, the freedom to protest and not go to jail, not be sent out of the country with no due process, all these things will be taken away from them.”
The Reiners’ son, Nick Reiner, has been arrested on suspicion of murder. Nick Reiner has struggled with addiction, and been in and out of rehab. But Trump seems to be saying that if Nick is indeed the perpetrator, he acted for pro-Trump political reasons — which obviously is highly unlikely and, well, just a weird and unhinged thing to claim.
But also, deeply hypocritical.
It was only a few months ago, in September, that Charlie Kirk was killed and Trump and his MAGA regime went nuts over anyone who dared whisper a critical word about Kirk. Trump called it “sick” and “deranged” that anyone could celebrate Kirk’s death, and blamed the “radical left” for violence-inciting rhetoric.
Vice President JD Vance, channeling his inner Scarlett O’Hara, vowed “with God as my witness,” he would use the full power of the state to crack down on political “networks” deemed terrorist. In reality, he’s largely just using the state to target people who oppose Trump out loud.
And just in case you thought maybe, maybe our president somehow really does have the good of all Americans at heart, recall that in speaking of Kirk, Trump said that he had one point of disagreement. Kirk, he claimed, forgave his enemies.
“That’s where I disagreed with Charlie,” Trump said. “I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them.”
There’s a malevolence so deep in Trump’s remarks about Reiner that even Marjorie Taylor Greene objected. She was once Trump’s staunchest supporter before he called her a traitor, empowering his goon squad to terrorize her with death threats.
“This is a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies,” Greene wrote on social media. “Many families deal with a family member with drug addiction and mental health issues. It’s incredibly difficult and should be met with empathy especially when it ends in murder.”
But Trump has made cruelty the point. His need to dehumanize everyone who opposes him, including Reiner and even Greene, is exactly what Reiner was warning us about.
Because when you allow people to be dehumanized, you stop caring about them — and Reiner was not about to let us stop caring.
He saw the world with an artist’s eye and a warrior’s heart, a mighty combination reflected in his films. He challenged us to believe in true love, to set aside our cynicism, to be both silly and brave, knowing both were crucial to a successful life.
This clarity from a man who commanded not just our attention and our respect, but our hearts, is what drove Trump crazy — and what made Reiner such a powerful threat to him. Republican or Democrat, his movies reminded us of what we hold in common.
But it might be Michael Douglas’ speech in 1995’s “The American President” that is most relevant in this moment. Douglas’ character, President Andrew Shepherd, says that “America is advanced citizenship. You’ve got to want it bad, because it’s going to put up a fight.”
Shepard’s rival, a man pursuing power over purpose, “is interested in two things and two things only — making you afraid of ‘it’ and telling you who’s to blame for ‘it.’ ”
Sound familiar?
That our president felt the need to trash Reiner before his body is even buried would be a badge of honor to Reiner, an acknowledgment that Reiner’s warnings carried weight, and that Reiner was a messenger to be reckoned with.
Reiner knew what advanced citizenship meant, and he wanted badly for democracy to survive.
If Trump’s eulogy sickens you the way it sickens me, then here’s what you can do about it: Vote in November in Reiner’s memory.
Your ballot is the rebuke Trump fears most.
And your vote is the most powerful way to honor a man who dedicated his life to reminding us that bravery is having the audacity to care.
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