Video: In US, another gay bi-national couple faces deportation

Via Towleroad

22 years after they first met, Mark and Frédéric, now with four children, faced a hearing at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Philadelphia to be interviewed in connection with the marriage-based immigration petition they filed last summer.

If the petition is not accepted, the family will be forced to leave the country. They will not separate. All because the federal government does not recognize same-sex married couples under DOMA and outdated immigration laws.

Stop the Deportations has a lengthy, detailed story on the couple's struggle.

And CNN has just done a story on Mark and Frédéric and their family.

Deportation reprieve for San Francisco gay couple

Source: Gay Star News

By Greg Hernandez

Bradford Wells and Anthony John Makk, together 19 years and married since 2004, had been living under the threat of Makk's imminent deportation to his native Australia.

But they received at least a two-year reprieve this week from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services thanks to intervention from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and state Sen. Mark Leno.

'We’re still dizzy from the news,'  Makk tells the San Francisco Chronicle. 'We are elated.'

Added Wells: 'I’m relieved, really excited and relieved. I am so grateful I don’t have to worry about Anthony being taken out of the country.'

The couple, who live in San Francisco's Castro District, were especially desperate not to be separated because Wells is suffering from illnesses related to AIDS and it is Makk who is his primary caregiver.
Pelosi gave the good news to the couple herself this week and issued the following statement: 'The positive resolution of Anthony’s immigration petition is a personal victory for Bradford and Anthony, and keeps this loving couple together.'

Makk has been in the U.S. legally but had run out of extensions on his visa. The two-year reprieve can be renewed, according to Immigration Equality, the advocacy group that championed the case.

Working in the couple's favor for future reprieves are new federal guidelines in these types of cases that take into account such factors as being a primary caregiver, a lack of criminal record, family ties, and a long period of living in the U.S. legally.

Wells and Makk married in Massachusetts in 2004 and the Australian native applied for a green card based on his marriage to a citizen. But his application was denied due to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) passed in 1996 which bars same-sex couples from all federal marital rights.

The U.S. Justice Department announced last year that it would no longer defend DOMA in court but the law has not been officially repealed.

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• Is the USA closing the door to LGBT Mexican asylum seekers? (madikazemi.blogspot.com)
• Obama administration denies immigration benefits to a married gay couple from San Francisco  (madikazemi.blogspot.com)

Video: In US, binational same sex couples struggle with deportation

2008 New Jersey civil union ceremony

Source: Pavement Pieces

After fleeing Peru in 2001 because he was persecuted for being gay, Jair Izquierdo settled in New Jersey, met his future husband, and started a life with him. But that life was brought to an abrupt halt last year when Izquierdo was deported for being in the country illegally.

Izquierdo and his partner, American citizen Richard Dennis of Jersey City, N.J., are one of thousands of binational same-sex couples in the United States that struggle with deportation. They were joined together by a civil union, but Izquierdo was an illegal immigrant, and because immigration law is federal, rather than state, Dennis was unable to sponsor him for citizenship.

“Most people don’t even realize how screwed up it is,” Dennis said of the current immigration law and how it applies to gay couples. “There’s so much subjectivity and fear and misinformation.”

The Defense of Marriage Act

The problem for couples like Dennis and Izquierdo is the Defense of Marriage Act, which ruled in 1996 that marriage is a legal union between a man and a woman. Because of DOMA, the federal government and its agencies, including those responsible for immigration benefits, are prohibited from recognizing same-sex marriages and civil unions.

“It’s very hard to explain to the many people who call us every day because it’s so patently unjust,” said Victoria Neilson, the legal director at Immigration Equality, a national organization that advocates for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered immigrants.

In February, the Obama administration announced that it would no longer continue to defend DOMA in the courts. However, it will be enforced until Congress or the Supreme Court votes to strike it down. In the meantime, the administration claims to be focusing on immigrants with criminal records.

This makes sense, Neilson said, because the backlog of immigration cases in each state would ease up, and many immigrants with clean records and ties to the community would have their cases closed. But whether this theory is being put into practice is a source of contention.

“It doesn’t really seem like the word has reached the field of the actual attorneys and ICE agents who are charged with deciding whether to put people in removal proceedings or not,” Neilson said, referring to the people working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Dennis echoes Neilson’s concerns.

“They talk tough about secure communities and weeding out criminals, but I think that they just want to deport as many people as possible,” he said. “So the rhetoric doesn’t match the actions and it doesn’t match reality.”

Read more »

Has Obama administration moved to stop break up of bi-national same-sex families?

Source: Washington Blade

By Chris Johnson

The Obama administration unveiled on Thursday 18 August new immigration policy that could enable many undocumented immigrants facing deportation to stay within the United States — a move that could enable bi-national same-sex couples at the risk of separation to stay together within the country.

Under the new guidance, immigration authorities within the Obama administration will conduct a case-by-case review of the approximately 300,000 undocumented immigrants facing possible deportation to determine which cases are high priority and low priority. Those who have been convicted of crimes or pose a security risk will be a higher priority for deportation, while those who are deemed lower priority will be taken out of the pipeline.

Administration officials will weigh a person’s ties and contributions to the community and family relationships. During an on background conference call with media outlets on Thursday, a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said these criteria are inclusive of LGBT families and same-sex couples.

“The prosecutorial discretion memo provides for the use of discretion for people with strong community ties, with community contributions and with family relationships,” the official said. “We consider LGBT families to be families in this context.”

Under current immigration code, straight Americans can sponsor their spouses for residency in the United States through the green card application process if their spouses are foreign nationals. The same rights aren’t available to gay Americans because same-sex marriage isn’t legal in many places in the country and because the Defense of Marriage Act prohibits federal recognition of these unions.

Consequently, foreign nationals who are in committed relationships with gay Americans may have to leave the United States or face deportation — which could mean separation from their partner — if these foreign nationals are discovered to be undocumented or upon expiration of their temporary visas. The new policy guidance offers another opportunity for the Obama administration to cancel the deportation of these foreign nationals, enabling them to remain in the country with their partners.

Read more »

Obama administration denies immigration benefits to a married gay couple from San Francisco

By Matthew Kolken

UPDATE: Chris Geidner reports that this case is more complicated than has been reported:

"The couple has not lost its battle, as the administrative decision is just that – an agency decision – and can be appealed to a point where an adversarial process could allow discretion more easily to be employed. And, though the article states that the Obama administration ''ordered the expulsion of a man who is the primary caregiver to his AIDS-afflicted spouse,'' there was no removal order issued in the case and, therefore, no immediate threat of deportation."

HT: Rick Rosendall

~~~

The San Francisco Chronicle has reported that the Obama administration is enforcing the Defense of Marriage Act by denying immigration benefits to a same sex couple married seven years ago in Massachusetts.

Bradford Wells is the U.S. citizen spouse, and his husband, Anthony John Makk, is a citizen of Australia. Mr. Wells filed a Form I-130 Immigration Petition for Alien Relative, which was denied by the administration on July 26. Mr. Wells has AIDS, and relies on his husband as his primary caregiver.

The Chronicle has further reported that Mr. Makk has been ordered removed from the United States, and is required to depart by August 25. I am not sure that this information is accurate, however, because it is unclear whether immigration court proceedings had already been instituted prior to the denial of the I-130. If I am able to get more information to clarify this point I will post an update.

So what does this tell us? It has become abundantly clear that this President and his administration are in fact adhering to the mandate of the Defense of Marriage Act, despite the fact that they have said otherwise.

More "Change" you can believe in.

• Click here to read the full report.

Matthew L. Kolken, Esq. is a trial lawyer with experience in all aspects of United States Immigration Law – including Immigration Courts throughout the United States, and appellate practice before the Board of Immigration Appeals, the U.S. District Courts, and U.S. Courts of Appeals.

Related articles

• LGBT Organizations Rally for Binational Same-Sex Couple Facing Deportation (out4immigration.blogspot.com)
• Immigration Judge Postpones Deportation Proceedings For Two Years, Allowing Married Gay Binational Couple to Remain in U.S. (out4immigration.blogspot.com)