Was Gingrich’s ‘humane’ immigration policy LGBT inclusive? | washingtonblade.com
LGBT immigration advocates are pushing Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich to put his money where his mouth is on the “humane” immigration policy he espoused that would allow undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States.
Gingrich, the current GOP presidential front-runner, made the remarks Tuesday night near the end of the CNN Republican presidential debate on national security held in D.C.
The former U.S. House speaker said the GOP should embrace a policy allowing undocumented immigrants to remain in the country if they’ve resided in the United States a long time.
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Bi-National Lesbian Couple's Plea to Repeal DOMA - VIDEO
By: Philippa Judd
Marriage equality in America doesn’t exist because of DOMA (The Defense of Marriage Act). My partner Inger and I are a bi-national couple. We’ve been together for 3.5 years and still we have to live separately. This video is an honest portrait of us and our daughter, using music, pictures and an interview with the strongest woman I’ve ever met; my wife.
Please take seven minutes to watch this and if it has an affect on you, help us change this situation.
Click the link above to watch the video.
Deportation Working Group Review Includes an LGBT Liaison | advocate.com
DHS executive secretary Philip A. McNamara
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A new federal working group tasked with a system-wide review of pending deportations will include an LGBT liaison to oversee cases involving gay binational couples.
The interagency working group, announced in August by Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, includes DHS executive secretary Philip A. McNamara as the LGBT liaison, DHS deputy press secretary Matthew Chandler wrote in an email response to The Advocate.
The working group’s inclusion of McNamara, one of several openly LGBT presidential appointees in Homeland Security, is “a very big step in the right direction” as DHS and Department of Justice officials undergo a review of some 300,000 current deportation cases, said Rachel Tiven, executive director of the LGBT immigration advocacy group Immigration Equality.
“We are pleased the administration has heard our concerns about the need to identify a working group member who is familiar with the unique obstacles faced by LGBT immigrants and their families,” Tiven said Monday. “Mr. McNamara has been engaged on those issues and is someone who we believe will have an open-door policy. We hope his appointment to the working group will be followed by clear, written guidance for all members of that group to ensure that, as cases are reviewed, LGBT individuals receive the discretion and consideration their cases warrant.”
Officials Deny Deportation Reprieve for Gay Binational Couple | advocate.com
Brian Andersen (left) and Anton Tanumihardja CNN
A gay Indonesian man fighting to remain in the U.S. with his American husband has been denied a reprieve from deportation — a decision that appears to contradict Obama administration promises that members of same-sex binational couples can be considered lower-priority cases among the nation’s 300,000 current deportation proceedings.
During a brief Friday meeting at Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Philadelphia office, Anton Tanumihardja, who in June married his American spouse, Brian Andersen, was denied a request for what’s known as deferred action. He was ordered to return to the local branch on January 13 for another appearance.
If the Department of Homeland Security or an immigration appeals board within the Justice Department does not intervene, immigration officers will require Tanumihardja to make travel arrangements back to Indonesia or be taken into custody and removed from the U.S. by ICE.
Lavi Soloway, the couple’s attorney and cofounder of Stop the Deportations, said he believed that the Friday decision means the administration has not implemented recently updated deportation guidelines in the field, which could have severe consequences for binational gay couples such as his clients.
“The Obama administration made a commitment to stop deportations that would tear apart families, including same-sex couples, and yet in its decision the ICE Office in Philadelphia is failing to make good on that commitment,” Soloway said. “The administration must take immediate action to ensure that the new deportation policy is being implemented fairly and consistently by ICE deportation officers in local offices, or this policy announcement is meaningless.”
ACTION ALERT!! Tell President Obama: Stop Separating Our Families!!
Tell the White House to keep Bradford & Anthony and Frances & Takako — and other LGBT families — together!
We’ll send a fax directly to President Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano, and add your name to a petition calling on the Administration to halt the separation of LGBT families. The White House counts every fax, every signature – your participation makes a difference.
The government has denied the green card application that Bradford Wells, an American, filed for his Australian partner of 19 years, despite their legal marriage and strong ties to the U.S. This follows the heartbreaking story of Vermont native Frances Herbert and her Japanese partner, Takako Ueda, another married couple who are facing imminent separation after more than a decade together.
We need relief for these families and every family. Tell the government to stop ripping families apart.
Bradford & Anthony and Frances & Takako recently told their stories to CNN. Now, you can add your voice to theirs, and take a stand for all LGBT families.
Click the link above to take part in the petition.
S.F. married couple loses immigration battle
Bradford Wells, a U.S. citizen, and Anthony John Makk, a citizen of Australia, were married seven years ago in Massachusetts. They have lived together 19 years, mostly in an apartment in the Castro district. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services denied Makk’s application to be considered for permanent residency as a spouse of an American citizen, citing the 1996 law that denies all federal benefits to same-sex couples.
The decision was issued July 26. Immigration Equality, a gay-rights group that is working with the couple, received the notice Friday and made it public Monday. Makk was ordered to depart the United States by Aug. 25. Makk is the sole caregiver for Wells, who has severe health problems.
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Source: dullscythe
Deportation of partner in same-sex couple halted
A Venezuelan salsa dancer who legally married an American man in a same-sex ceremony last year has had his deportation placed on hold. The decision comes one day after U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder set aside a Board of Immigration Appeals ruling in a similar case.
Henry Velandia, who faces deportation to Venezuela, is petitioning to be allowed to remain in the U.S. as the spouse of U.S. citizen Josh Vandiver.
Judge Alberto Riefkohl granted an adjournment of the case Friday in a Newark immigration court.
At issue is who can be considered a spouse under federal law.
Velandia is a 27-year-old professional salsa dancer and Vandiver is a 29-year-old graduate student at Princeton University. They were married last year in Connecticut, where same-sex marriage is legal.
Breakthrough on Immigration Rights?
Described by one attorney as a “game changer” that could bring parity to LGBT individuals in the U.S. immigration system, two district immigration offices have recently decided to put on hold marriage-based green card applications in cases involving binational gay couples.
Newsweek/The Daily Beast reported Friday that immigration offices in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. were putting green card applications and alien relative petitions involving married, binational gay couples on hold, effectively deferring potential deportation proceedings. The move comes just weeks after the Obama administration announced it would no longer defend Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act in several legal challenges against the 1996 law.
Whether the decisions reflect a broader policy change on the national level remains a matter of speculation. “We have not implemented any change in policy and intend to follow the president’s directive to continue enforcing the law,” USCIS press secretary Christopher Bentley told Newsweek/The Daily Beast.
That statement is identical to one sent to The Advocate from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokeswoman regarding an ICE attorney’s agreement with immigration attorney Lavi Soloway last week to adjourn deportation hearings in the case of Monica Alcota, an Argentine woman who married her American citizen spouse, Cristina Ojeda, last year in Connecticut (the couple lives in New York). Alcota and Ojeda are the first married gay couple to argue in court that a pending deportation should be suspended as a result of the Obama administration’s February announcement regarding DOMA.
“For privacy reasons, we cannot comment on the specifics of this case without the individual’s consent,” ICE acting press secretary Barbara Gonzalez continued in an e-mail response. “What I can tell you, however, is that it is not uncommon for ICE to agree to adjournments.”
Reached on Sunday, Soloway said he intends to file three more green card applications on behalf of married, gay binational clients in the near future — none of whom are currently in deportation proceedings nor reside in the districts that have gone on record in putting a hold on such applications. “What’s happened around the country suggests that the policy is not limited to those district offices,” Soloway said. “There’s a strong indication that other districts either already are holding such cases in abeyance or will hold such cases in abeyance.”
“This is not about enforcing DOMA,” Soloway continued. “The question here is, What is the appropriate policy [for married binational gay couples] in the interim period when the law is subject to repeal and has been shown to be vulnerable to constitutional challenge in federal court?”
Soloway has repeatedly advised, however, that binational gay couples seek legal counsel prior to filing any marriage-based petition or green card application.
Over the past month, three Congressional representatives — Reps. Zoe Lofgren of California, and Jerrold Nadler and Joseph Crowley of New York, have all called on the administration to put on hold any deportation proceedings involving married, binational gay couples.
“Ultimately the DOMA law needs to be repealed,” Crowley told The Advocate last week. “But what’s paramount is that families need to be able to stay together.”
Read the Newsweek/The Daily Beast piece here.
Same-Sex Binationals Encouraged to Seek Legal Advice Regarding DOMA Challenges
Guest post by Lavi Soloway, Stop the Deportations, the DOMA Project, immigration attorney with the law firm Masliah and Soloway
Since the Obama Administration instructed the Justice Department to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court last week, we have been contacted by many same-sex binational couples who have sought to bring cases, file I-130 petitions or otherwise take up a DOMA-related challenge in the immigration context.
First Seek Expert Legal Advice
It is extremely important that no couple make any move without obtaining expert legal advice. There are significant, negative consequences, some potential and some assured, for any couple that starts down this path. There is a reason most of the couples in our Stop the Deportations, the DOMA Project were already in deportation proceedings when we filed I-130 petitions on their behalf (i.e., those who were already facing deportation had no risk of endangering their status further by making these arguments). Making a wrong move now could cause irreversible legal problems for a binational couple even if DOMA is struck down or repealed, and even if the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA) is passed into law. Every couple considering their next move should be aware of the negative consequences that will result if they press forward and should be strongly discouraged by competent attorneys from taking any cavalier or risky steps at this time.
While many couples have sat on the sidelines and decided not to marry out of an abundance of caution (often those couples could have married without fear of negative consequences, but again should be consulting attorneys for individualized legal analysis on the issue), the same cannot be said for filing petitions with immigration. Once petitions are filed, a legal process will have begun that in many cases will have permanent consequences. For that reason, we urge all members of the binational couple community to look at the new landscape, assess opportunities and the strategic advantages it presents and obtain individualized legal advice.
One of the most important things we can do now is support the repeal of DOMA in the House and Senate. When those bills are introduced by Sen. Feinstein and Rep. Nadler we should energetically support their passage.
Some More Explanation on What Is to Come
One point that is often overlooked regardless of whether a same-sex binational couple is married or unmarried, is that the demise of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) will be of spectacular importance the next day because it will open up the door to fiancée visa petitions for those who are separated or exiled. (Stop the Deportations, the DOMA Project currently has one fiancée visa petition pending).
The day DOMA is no longer law, a lesbian American citizen living in Florida will be able to file a K-1 fiancée visa petition for her same-sex Kenyan partner as long as they note in the petition their intention to marry in a US jurisdiction that recognizes and performs same-sex marriages. It will not be particularly relevant where the parties live (except as a practical matter that it may require some logistical planning and travel expense).
Also, if DOMA is struck down by the US Supreme Court as violative of the US Constitution, laws and state constitutional amendments (the so-called mini-DOMAs) excluding same-sex couples from marriage in 45 states will also likely become a thing of the past. When DOMA is relegated to the dustbin of history, there will be an immediate and overwhelming victory for all binational couples. That doesn’t mean we will not still have our work cut out for us, but we will forever change the landscape of this issue and effectively end the deportations, separations and exile of binational couples in almost all cases overnight.
Stop the Deportations, The DOMA Project is a pro bono project of our law firm (Masliah & Soloway). Our firm is run by two gay immigration lawyers with a combined 50+ years of experience in immigration law, specifically LGBT-focused immigration law. We are founders of Immigration Equality, we helped write Permanent Partners Immigration Act/Uniting American Families Act. Our involvement in the Marriage Equality movement is similarly of long duration reaching back to the early 1990s when Noemi Masliah was the Chair of the Board of Lambda Legal Defense and I worked with Lambda’s attorney, Evan Wolfson, to campaign against DOMA during the period that the Hawaii marriage case was in full swing.
Our project is challenging DOMA in the immigration context with about 12 couples so far; these challenges are mostly in immigration court, though two cases are from outside the US (one married couple exiled in Canada, the second fiancée visa petition for a couple exiled in the UK).
For more information visit our website or write to us at stopthedeportations@gmail.com.
Hope for Queens couples' immigration rights after Obama's abandoning of Defense of Marriage Act
Queens couple Monica Alcota and Cristina Ojeda are fighting to stay together.
A lesbian couple from Queens fighting to stay together in the U.S. found new hope this week after President Obama abandoned the Defense of Marriage Act.
Social worker Cristina Ojeda, an American citizen, petitioned for a green card for her Argentine wife, Monica Alcota, in August - even though the feds don’t give gay couples immigration rights.
Now that the White House won’t defend the 1996 law that bars recognition of same-sex marriages, Ojeda and Alcota hope the petition will be approved one day.
“Finally, the light of hope! Of being able to be together and live in peace,” said Alcota, 35, an antique furniture restorer.
“I filed the petition because I love her, and she’s my wife,” said Ojeda, 25. “I should have the right to live my life with the person that I love. Those are my rights as a citizen. In a way they’re being sort of violated.”
The women were married last August in Connecticut, because gay marriages are not legally performed in New York.
Alcota - who overstayed a tourist visa and is fighting deportation - plans to appeal if she’s turned down for a green card.
Their lawyer is planning to file petitions on behalf of other couples after Obama’s announcement.
“It forces the government to take a position - to write a letter to an American citizen and say, ‘We’re denying this petition because you’re gay,’” said the lawyer, Lavi Soloway.
Soloway and law partner Noemi Masliah have filed petitions for a dozen couples as part of a pro bono project.
They are bracing for a flood of new clients because of the White House’s position change.
If the petitions are denied, they will take them to the Board of Immigration Appeals. The board is part of the Justice Department, which has been ordered to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act.
Soloway hopes the board will put the petitions on hold - keeping undocumented partners from being deported until the courts make a final decision on same-sex marriage.
“Dynamic change in this area of law is currently underway,” he said. “Pretty soon we all think they will be approved.”
Until then, he and other experts say gay couples should not file without legal advice because of the risk of alerting the feds to an undocumented partner.
“It is increasingly easy for the government to remove you from the country,” said Rachel Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality.
“There are terrific set of potential new options on the horizon. Unfortunately, it doesn’t change the game today.”
Did Ugandan Brenda Namigadde Lie About Being A Lesbian To Score British Asylum?
Brenda Namigadde, the 29-year-old Ugandan woman living in Britain who initially scored a reprieve from deportation by claiming her homosexuality would subject her to threats and violence, has renewed her appeal to avoid being shipped off. And it curiously leaves out any mention that she’s a lesbian — only that she’s been reported in the press to be one.
Now that she’s been slapped with the “lesbian” title, Namigadde remains at risk, the Telegraph relays.
Her legal team managed to secure a last-minute delay in her removal from Britain by arguing that as a homosexual she would be at risk of persecution in her African homeland. But now lawyers acting for the woman, who can be identified only as “BN”, have submitted a new appeal on her behalf – which no longer hinges on her sexuality. Instead, they say that because she has appeared in newspapers claiming to be gay, she would inevitably be at risk in Uganda whatever her true sexual orientation.
How come? Because a judge handling the case ruled Namigadde isn’t gay at all.
Earlier this month this newspaper revealed how she was unable to remember the surname, age, employer or other details of a woman with whom she claimed she had a six-year relationship in Uganda. Nor could she describe a lesbian bar in London that she claimed she visited regularly.
BN came to Britain in 2002 and overstayed her visa, later lodging an asylum claim. She claimed to have been beaten and victimised over her sexuality. The Home Office refused her claim and began deportation proceedings. Last December, immigration judge Toby Davey ruled that BN should be sent back to Uganda. He criticised the 28-year-old for a “lack of candour” over her sexuality, and concluded: “I find that the appellant was and is not, on the evidence before me, a lesbian.” Yet following the ruling, BN secured sympathetic coverage in several newspapers. Her lawyers, Luton-based Cardinal Solicitors, were quoted on the dangers she allegedly faced, and BN herself gave interviews from inside Yarl’s Wood immigration detention centre.
Now Namigadde’s lawyers claim “the credibility of the applicant’s sexuality … is entirely irrelevant to the risk … that the applicant will face. … The risk derives from a widespread national public perception of the applicant being homosexual.” Which, uh, she and her representatives, it appears, conveniently manufactured. In which case: shame on them. Because while Namigadde may have decent reasons to want to stay in Britain and away from her homeland, gaming the system — and casting more speculation and cynicism on actual LGBTs who need the safe haven that asylum offers — hurts everyone.
Israel: Partner of gay shooting victim is granted visa
Public pressure and the Katz family’s refusal to accept the government’s previous decision to deport Thomas when his temporary residency expired, has paid off.
For now the decision to deport Schmidt has been reversed until the details of his case are re-investigated.
“I have lost a son, I don’t want to lose Thomas as well,” Said the mother of Schmidt’s slain partner, Ayala Katz, according to Ynet .
