Cite as: 533 U. S. 53 (2001)
O'Connor, J., dissenting
tionship with that parent. See Miller, 523 U. S., at 440 (opinion of Stevens, J.). If a child grows up in a foreign country without any postbirth contact with the citizen parent, then the child's never-realized "opportunity" for a relationship with the citizen seems singularly irrelevant to the appropriateness of granting citizenship to that child. Likewise, where there is an actual relationship, it is the actual relationship that does all the work in rendering appropriate a grant of citizenship, regardless of when and how the opportunity for that relationship arose.
Accepting for the moment the majority's focus on "opportunity," the attempt to justify § 1409(a)(4) in these terms is still deficient. Even if it is important "to require that an opportunity for a parent-child relationship occur during the formative years of the child's minority," ante, at 68, it is difficult to see how the requirement that proof of such opportunity be obtained before the child turns 18 substantially furthers the asserted interest. As the facts of this case demonstrate, ante, at 57, it is entirely possible that a father and child will have the opportunity to develop a relationship and in fact will develop a relationship without obtaining the proof of the opportunity during the child's minority. After his parents' relationship had ended, petitioner Nguyen lived with the family of his father's new girlfriend. In 1975, before his sixth birthday, Nguyen came to the United States, where he was reared by his father, petitioner Boulais. In 1997, a DNA test showed a 99.98% probability of paternity, and, in 1998, Boulais obtained an order of parentage from a Texas court.
Further underscoring the gap between the discriminatory means and the asserted end is the possibility that "a child might obtain an adjudication of paternity 'absent any affirmative act by the father, and perhaps even over his express objection.' " Miller, 523 U. S., at 486 (Breyer, J., dissenting) (quoting id., at 434 (opinion of Stevens, J.)). The fact that the means-end fit can break down so readily
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