m******1 发帖数: 19713 | 1 Bright Spots on Gay Immigration Rights Front
By Andrew Harmon
IMMIGRATION RALLY MAIN X390 (FAIR USE) | ADVOCATE.COM
Following news last week that immigration officials agreed to cancel
deportation proceedings in one high-profile case, two more gay binational
couples have seen positive developments in their attempts to stay together
in the country despite the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act, which the
Obama administration issued a resounding court argument against on Friday.
Both cases involve gay men who have faced potential deportation back to
their home countries.
In Maryland, Rodrigo Martinez, a Salvadoran citizen who married his spouse
in Washington, D.C., March 1 and was ordered to surrender to immigration
authorities eight days later, will now see his case reopened, an immigration
judge has ruled. And in the case of Paul Wilson Dorman, a British citizen
who has lived in the U.S. since 1996 and has a New Jersey civil union with
his partner, an appeals board has remanded proceedings back to an
immigration judge for further examination. Dorman’s attorney, Nicholas J.
Mundy, said he received the board’s June 30 order earlier today. "I believe
it’s very significant, and it's going to give us an opportunity to
postpone and put a stop to this deportation," Mundy said.
As with the case of Henry Velandia, who is married to an American citizen
and whose canceled deportation was reported Wednesday, Martinez's American
spouse would have the right to sponsor his foreign-born partner for
citizenship if DOMA were no longer law of the land.
But the news is perhaps a further sign that officials are taking steps to
prevent or delay deportations involving such couples. President Obama, while
striking a states-should-decide-the-issue position on marriage, has also
said that gay couples deserve “the same legal rights as every other couple
in this country.”
Lavi Soloway, the attorney for Martinez (as well as Velandia), said that an
immigration judge in Baltimore canceled a previous order of removal for his
client in reopening the proceedings: “The judge wants to give both parties
opportunity to present anything relevant that she can consider in moving
forward in deportation proceedings.” And a new Justice Department brief in
a case playing out across the country fits that description, Soloway said.
The 31-page brief — described by one gay rights attorney as “strong,
eloquent, and very much worth celebrating” — was filed Friday in the case
of Karen Golinski, a U.S. court of appeals attorney in San Francisco who
sued the federal government after she was denied spousal health benefits for
her wife.
The DOJ argued that Golinski's case should not be dismissed and articulated
its position against DOMA, citing a long history of discrimination on the
basis of sexual orientation — “the kind of animus and stereotype-based
thinking that the Equal Protection Clause [of the Fourteenth Amendment] is
designed to guard against,” government attorneys wrote. (House Republican
leadership announced in April that it had tapped former George W. Bush
solicitor general Paul Clement to lead defense of DOMA in multiple federal
court challenges after the Justice Department announced it would no longer
do so.)
“The Department of Justice's position nearly always has extra persuasive
heft in litigation,” said Jennifer Pizer, legal director at the Williams
Institute and former marriage project director for Lambda Legal, which
represents Golinski. “And while this brief is just a fuller rendition of
the position taken back in February, it was not at all assumed that the
administration would participate actively in the pending DOMA cases.”
Soloway said of the Justice Department's stance, "Deportations is one area
where the Obama administration has the discretion to limit DOMA's
discriminatory impact on married same-sex couples. And in keeping with their
own brief in Golinski, they should take action immediately to stop those
deportations."
Administration officials have stuck to talking points that DOMA will
continue to be enforced. But immigration authorities have also recently
issued expanded discretionary guidelines that could benefit gay binational
couples fighting to remain together in the country.
In a memo issued last month, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials
expanded criteria to be considered by field directors, agents, and attorneys
when prioritizing deportation cases, including whether an individual has a
U.S. citizen spouse as well as “the person’s ties and contributions to the
community” and whether the individual’s nationality “renders removal
unlikely.”
Immigration Equality legal director Victoria Neilson said Tuesday of the
Justice Department’s brief, “Every step that DOJ takes to do the right
thing on DOMA makes their position on immigration cases — that they will
continue the enforcement of DOMA — more untenable. My hope is that DOJ will
come around [with] DOMA in the immigration context, just as they’ve come
around in federal litigation.” | k*****e 发帖数: 22013 | 2 我的担心就是:这到底是白纸黑字的保障,还是法官心软一时开恩?
the
【在 m******1 的大作中提到】![](/moin_static193/solenoid/img/up.png) : Bright Spots on Gay Immigration Rights Front : By Andrew Harmon : IMMIGRATION RALLY MAIN X390 (FAIR USE) | ADVOCATE.COM : Following news last week that immigration officials agreed to cancel : deportation proceedings in one high-profile case, two more gay binational : couples have seen positive developments in their attempts to stay together : in the country despite the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act, which the : Obama administration issued a resounding court argument against on Friday. : Both cases involve gay men who have faced potential deportation back to : their home countries.
| L*****g 发帖数: 646 | 3 只是不递解出境而已
我好奇的是他现在的身份是什么?是否合法?能否工作? | p***2 发帖数: 374 | 4 no deporation <> green card/EAD |
|