Cite as: 533 U. S. 53 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
children of citizen fathers in furthering its important objectives. Only the least onerous of the three options provided for in § 1409(a)(4) must be satisfied. If the child has been legitimated under the law of the relevant jurisdiction, that will be the end of the matter. See § 1409(a)(4)(A). In the alternative, a father who has not legitimated his child by formal means need only make a written acknowledgment of paternity under oath in order to transmit citizenship to his child, hardly a substantial burden. See § 1409(a)(4)(B). Or, the father could choose to obtain a court order of paternity. See § 1409(a)(4)(C). The statute can be satisfied on the day of birth, or the next day, or for the next 18 years. In this case, the unfortunate, even tragic, circumstance is that Boulais did not pursue, or perhaps did not know of, these simple steps and alternatives. Any omission, however, does not nullify the statutory scheme.
Section 1409(a), moreover, is not the sole means by which the child of a citizen father can attain citizenship. An individual who fails to comply with § 1409(a), but who has substantial ties to the United States, can seek citizenship in his or her own right, rather than via reliance on ties to a citizen parent. See, e. g., 8 U. S. C. §§ 1423, 1427. This option now may be foreclosed to Nguyen, but any bar is due to the serious nature of his criminal offenses, not to an equal protection denial or to any supposed rigidity or harshness in the citizenship laws.
IV
The statutory scheme's satisfaction of the equal protection scrutiny we apply to gender-based classifications constitutes a sufficient basis for upholding it. It should be noted, however, that, even were we to conclude that the statute did not meet this standard of review, petitioners would face additional obstacles before they could prevail.
The INS urges that, irrespective of whether § 1409(a) is constitutional, the Court cannot grant the relief petitioners request: the conferral of citizenship on terms other than
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