Obama Recognizing Same Sex Couples in Deportation Changes
Posted by Linda H
The news means that gay families facing deportation may win the right to stay in the country under DHS criteria of who constitutes a high priority for removal. The guiding document for who merits the use of prosecutorial discretion is a June 17 memo written by Immigration and Customs Enforcement director John Morton. Morton advised ICE agents and attorneys to consider those who met any of the following characteristics were a low priority for deportation: those who were victims of crime, especially domestic violence or trafficking; those who are long-time lawful permanent residents; those with are veterans or active-duty military personnel and those with strong family ties in the U.S.
California couple Doug Gentry and his husband Alex Benshimol, who’d been fighting Benshimol’s deportation to Venezuela, will not be separated anytime soon, after a San Francisco immigration judge moved to close Benshimol’s removal order in early August, their attorney Lavi Soloway announced today.
Benshimol, who came to the U.S. in 1999 on a visitor visa that expired two years ago, and Gentry got married in 2005 in Connecticut, but under DOMA their marriage was not considered legal and therefore not a consideration in Benshimol’s removal proceedings. While the Obama administration and Congress grapples with the constitutionality of DOMA, Benshimol and many other same-sex binational couples have been fighting to stay together in the country.
Benshimol and Gentry are the first same-sex couple to win a deportation stay since the release of the June 17 memo, according to their attorney.
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