DOMA Damage: Lesbian Spouse may be Deported Despite Marriage | Gay ...

One of the most insidious aspects of the Defense of Marriage Act is that it precludes married same-sex couples from petitioning for a green card under the U.S. Federal immigration law; a right which bi-national heterosexual couples enjoy.? The result has caused hardship to tens of thousands of gay and lesbian Americans in bi-national relationships.?? Since President Bill Clinton signed the law into effect, LGBT activists and a core group of Democratic? Representatives have battled for legislation to amend the current Immigration and Naturalization Act to include what has been termed ?permanent partners.?? The current incarnation of that attempt is in the form of the Uniting American Families Act, (UAFA) introduced into Congress and championed by Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT.)?

On April 22nd, 2009 Shirley Tan a mother of? 12 year old twin boys, who had been in a 20 year relationship with Jay Mercado, was detained by ICE.? With mere days to deportation, through the assistance of her Congresswoman, Jackie Speier and a rare private bill (#867) by Senator Feinstein,? Tan was able to remain in the U.S.A., serving as the impetus for her testimony at a Senate Judiciary Hearing on UAFA on June 03, 2009.? Unfortunately the hearing did not yield further traction to the Bill in Congress. It is my strong opinion that this was due to a failed strategy (or lack thereof) by Immigration Equality, an organization touting themselves as the preeminent advocacy group serving the bi-national LGBT community.

Instead of pursuing UAFA on the wings of this extraordinary historic hearing, Immigration equality took bi-national couples down the path of ?immigration reform? for the entire nation. This served in essence to kill UAFA as a stand alone bill. ? I have always considered UAFA as an imperative? priority,? ahead of all other immigration legislation, because it is the American spouse who is wronged by the inequity caused by DOMA and how it then impacts the Immigration and Naturalization Act?s ability to serve American gay spouses.

We have found some respite in the work of ?Stop the Deportations,?? a campaign to enlighten and draw attention to the plight of bi-national same-sex couples.? However, while praising the attention the anti-deportation? campaign has brought to the issue in general, there are tens of thousands of gay and lesbian couples living in exile, living in fear or separated from their loved ones.

I doubt that this Congress will ever consider UAFA now, not without its attachment to comprehensive? immigration reform. Because our own advocates have tacked it on to the larger reform bill, there would be no reason for Republicans to do more than throw it back on our faces, telling us to wait for an immigration reform bill, which seems to have a back seat at this time.

The first and and only hope in my opinion for parity in the Immigration law is to repeal DOMA.? While that happens, and who knows when, there is no remedy for gay and lesbian families.? While DHS must stop deporting our spouses, we still need remedies to get them here and keep them here, so that deportation is not a risk.? As I have suggested before, a special visa process should serve our families until DOMA is repealed and the basis could well be the fact that our Courts have already ruled DOMA unconstitutional.?? We need some creativity in Washington.? In 2009, I drafted a Petition to this end and have over 2000 signatures. I hope you will sign it too.

In the meantime here is yet another Stop the Deportation case:

?My name is Violeta. I am a 27 year old American citizen. I live in Denver, Colorado where I was born. I hold a degree in Criminal Justice and work as a Correctional Case Manager. My wife, Sujey, and I, are one of the many same-sex couples who are threatened with being torn apart because of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Because of DOMA, I cannot pursue the most obvious solution which would be to petition for her as my spouse; instead we are fighting for asylum due to her past experiences of extreme harm that she suffered in Mexico and her fear of returning there. All our hopes are on this asylum application?a long, difficult and painful struggle for Sujey, who has had to re-live traumatic incidents of physical and sexual assaults?but there is no guarantee that it will be granted. What is so obvious, is that we should never have had to fight in this way at all. We have been together for almost 5 years as a couple and we are married. No American citizen should have to beg for protection for her spouse; the right to sponsor my spouse for a ?green card? should be automatic for me as it is for all other American citizens.

On August 19th, an Immigration Judge in Denver will decide whether Sujey will be deported from the United States. This fact puts our life, our marriage, and our family into a state of complete chaos. Sujey has lived in the United States since she was brought here as a teenager, and she is fully a part of my family as any spouse can be. Why does my government insist on enforcing this unconstitutional law against me? If Sujey is deported she will be barred from the United States for ten years. TEN YEARS. There are no words to describe the anguish we feel as the days countdown to August 19th. We hope and pray for a miracle.

I met Sujey on November 2, 2006 at a gay club named El Protrero and from that day on we have never been apart. We had our first date the next day. Sujey was very supportive of me while I attended school and put in long hours studying. She would stay up late with me as I tried to get my homework done and would help me study and read my term papers. I loved her immediately. Two months later, Sujey and I moved in with each other; we were spending so much time with each other, our relationship was getting serious, and it made no sense to be paying two monthly rents. Our pets got along great, too. We quickly became one big a happy family. Together we now have 4 dogs, Honey, Briza, Akira and Rocko and 2 cats, Kissie and Soulen. We also have a red tail Boa, her name is Destiny.

I love Sujey with all my heart. I knew when we started dating that I had found true love for the first time in my life. I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. We were engaged for two years, our plans for our wedding were still taking place at the time Sujey was picked up by immigration. Even though we knew that the federal government doesn?t recognize the marriages of same-sex couples, we knew just as strongly that we wanted to marry and move forward with our lives together as a family. As an engagement promise, we got tattoos with each other?s names. We planned for two years to get married in one of the states where marriage was legal for a same-sex couples. Finally the day came. Sujey and I married November 15, 2010 in Iowa. It was the happiest day of our lives.?

Join? the ? Stop The Deportations?? campaign to help make others aware of the humanitarian crisis that binational gay couples face, even when we are married. We need your help to stop this deportation from happening. We are reaching out to our two U.S. Senators Michael Bennet and Mark Udall and our Representative Diana DeGette to ask them to call on the administration to stop this deportation. We ask everyone who is reading this to help us by calling those elected officials and urging them to take action to save our marriage and stop this deportation. Read the rest of the story

SAVE THE MARRIAGE OF VIOLETA & SUJEY PANDO:

CALL ON THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
TO STOP ALL DEPORTATIONS OF SPOUSES OF LESBIAN AND GAY AMERICANS

U.S. Representative Diana DeGette: (202) 225-4431??? Denver (303) 844-4988
U.S. Senator Michael Bennet: (202) 224-5852??? Denver (303) 455-7600
U.S. Senator Mark Udall: 202-224-5941??? Denver (303) 650-7820

BINATIONAL: VISA PETITION AND SHIRLEY TAN?S TESTIMONY at http://www.change.org/petitions/special-visa-for-binational-lgbt-spouse-perma-partners

Resources: out4immigration.org

?Footnotes:-

By Melanie Nathan
E-Mail: Melanie@gayusathemovie.com
Twitter: @oblogdeeoblogda
About Melanie: www.visualcv.com/melnathan

Source: http://gayusathemovie.com/2011/08/doma-damage-lesbian-spouse-may-be-deported-despite-marriage/

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