Matter of Mourillon

Mourillon (petitioner), born to unmarried parents in the British West Indies whose mother left the household while he was an infant, immigrated with his father to Curacao, where his father remarried and had a daughter - Mourillon's stepsister and the visa beneficiary - with his stepmother; Mourillon and the beneficiary maintained close ties as adults, and she was living with him in the U.S. as a student when he filed a petition classifying her as his sister under the immigration statute's sibling provision. The Director denied the petition, examining only the siblings' relationship through their shared father and concluding Mourillon's illegitimacy meant they weren't statutory siblings; Mourillon appealed, arguing both that Curacao law had legitimated him through his father and that he and the beneficiary independently qualified as siblings through their shared stepmother.