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发帖数: 19713 | 1 Some Deportations Halted for Gay Immigrants
By Trudy Ring
panda girls
From left: Violeta and Sujey Pando StopTheDeporations.Blogspot.com
Some binational same-sex couples received good news about pending
deportation orders this week, thanks partly to the Obama administration’s
new policy making certain deportations low priority.
Denver immigration judge Mimi Tsankov Friday halted the deportation of Sujey
Pando and scheduled a new hearing in January based on her marriage to U.S.
citizen Violeta Pando, attorney Lavi Soloway reported on his Stop the
Deportations blog. Sujey is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who came
to the U.S. as a minor. She married longtime partner Violeta last year in
Iowa, where same-sex marriage is legally recognized. They live in Denver.
“Because [Friday's] hearing was intended to be a final decision day on
Sujey's deportation, the judge's action was unusual; she spent 45 minutes
methodically considering the procedural posture of the case,” wrote Soloway
, who is representing Sujey Pando. “In the end, the judge set aside the
intended purpose of the hearing, citing developments including the Attorney
General's intervention in a similar case in May ... and noted that the
issues involved in this case existed in a context that was 'fluid' and 'in a
state of flux.' The judge referred to events that occurred as recent as
yesterday as having an impact on how to proceed. Yesterday, the [Department
of Homeland Security] Secretary [Janet] Napolitano ordered a review of all
pending deportation cases for possible closure, including those involving
LGBT families.”
Napolitano issued a letter to the U.S. Senate Thursday saying the status of
undocumented immigrants who pose no security risk and came to the country as
children should be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. “The judge was not
comfortable moving forward with so much at stake,” Soloway toldThe Denver
Post.
On Tuesday, an immigration judge in San Francisco closed deportation
proceedings involving Raul Sinense, a Filipino national who married U.S.
citizen Peter Gee in California in 2008 during the brief period that same-
sex marriage was legal in that state. Sinense had lived and worked legally
in the U.S. with a green card for many years, but his green card renewal was
denied in 2009, and deportation proceedings began, according a press
release from the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
The decision in Sinense’s case, according to the lawyers’ group, was made
possible by an earlier Obama administration directive, allowing Immigration
and Customs Enforcement attorneys to opt not to seek deportation of certain
individuals. ICE and the judge agreed to a request by Sinense’s lawyer,
Camiel Becker, to close deportation proceedings against Sinense until the
constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, which prevents the federal
government from recognizing same-sex marriages, is determined. DOMA is
currently being challenged in several court cases, and legislation to repeal
it is pending in Congress.
Also, Soloway told The Advocate he received notice Saturday that ICE had
dropped deportation proceedings against Venezuelan Alex Benshimol, who is
married to American Doug Gentry. This decision was also based on the ICE
memo and came within weeks of a July hearing in which the couple requested
closure of the deportation action. At that time the judge gave the
government 60 days to decide whether it will agree to drop the case against
Benshimol and said she would not revisit the case for two years if the
government did not agree, Soloway said. “It demonstrates that a just
outcome can be achieved for married lesbian and gay binational couples
simply by deciding not to pursue deportation when doing so would result in a
marriage being torn part by an unjust and unconstitutional law,” he said.
The action was the second of its kind this year, he said.
He added, “We still need a uniform policy that will make these case by case
determinations unnecessary. We are cautiously optimistic after the
announcement this week by Janet Napolitano that all 300,000 pending
deportation case will be reviewed for possible closure, including those
impacting LGBT families. However, we do not know yet the mechanics of that
process, nor how long it will take for the government working group to carry
out its mission. In the meantime we must continue to fight for each couple
and for an end to DOMA deportations across the board.”
Read more on Soloway’s blog here, and previous Advocate coverage of the
couple’s case here.
The impact of new immigration policies remains to be seen for many couples,
including Bradford Wells and Anthony John Makk of San Francisco. Wells, a U.
S. citizen, and Makk, an Australian, married in Massachusetts seven years
ago, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The visa under which Makk has
been able to remain in the U.S. legally expires next Thursday. His
application for permanent residency and Wells’s petition to have him
recognized as a legal spouse have been denied and are on appeal.
The Napolitano letter may offer the couple some hope, but not before Makk’s
visa expires — it applies only to those already facing deportation. He
remains a legal resident until it expires, and he and Wells said they hope
he does not have to become undocumented in order to win the right to stay in
the country.
“Anthony and I have worked tirelessly for the entire length of our
relationship to make sure that he has been in legal status,” Wells told the
Chronicle. “Being legal has been important to us for 19 years, and I think
we should be rewarded for remaining in legal status and not be treated the
same as people who have no regard for the law, because that would give
people no motivation to do the right thing.” Still, he said the new policy
“is a really big step in that the government is showing compassion to gay
and lesbian families.”
Meanwhile, prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, a long-out gay man
who came out this year as an undocumented immigrant, discussed the
implications of the new administration policies with Rachel Maddow on her
show Friday. Watch Vargas, who was recently named one of The Advocate’s
Innovators, with Maddow here. | p***2
发帖数: 374 | 2 这个还是没法给绿卡啊，sigh
刚出来那个自己start up可以自己sponsor h-1b和PERM不知道对于保留身份有没有用。
万一被layoff，不至于黑啊。 |
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