Married, Gay Binational Couple Goes to Their Green Card Interview in San Francisco

Dan82 · Jun 16, 2011

http://stopthedeportations.blogspot.com/2011/06/making-history-married-gay-binational.html

Jon Anthony Carr and Sergio Suhett met in 1995 when Jon spotted Sergio across a crowded reservations center at United Airlines and offered him assistance; they’ve been learning from one another ever since. They were first married in 2004 when then-Mayor Gavin Newsom directed his clerks to perform marriages for lesbian and gay couples. After those marriages were voided, the couple re-married in 2008 during the brief window of legal marriage in California that lasted until Proposition 8 was passed amending that state’s constitution to once again bar lesbian and gay couples from marriage.

Sergio, who was born in Brazil, is in the United States in a non-permanent lawful status that does not provide a path to a green card or citizenship. This status allows him to live and work in the US legally indefinitely but if he ever leaves the country -- even for a week-long vacation -- he can never return. As the years went by and they began to look ahead to their future, they realized they needed greater security for Sergio. And they wanted to be able to see the world together. For that they would have to get Sergio a green card on the basis of their marriage which is impossible, of course, because the federal government is still barred by DOMA from recognizing their legal marriage. The basic unfairness of this and their awareness of the plight of many LGBT binational couples led them to join the fight for same-sex immigration rights. In fact, they were the first couple to participate in The DOMA Project’s Stop the Deportations campaign...

http://stopthedeportations.blogspot.com/2011/06/making-history-married-gay-binational.html
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Married, Gay Binational Couple Goes to Their Green Card Interview in San Francisco

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Dan82
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