The "hold" on same-sex married bi-national couples' green card applications -- celebrated by immigration and LGBT advocates -- is over, according to the spokesman for the agency that processes those requests.
"The guidance we were awaiting ... was received last night, so the hold is over, so we're back to adjudicating cases as we always have," U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services press secretary Christopher S. Bentley told Metro Weekly this morning.
The agency will continue to "enforce the law," he says, which means that the Defense of Marriage Act -- which prohibits the government from recognizing same-sex marriages -- prevents those green card applications from being approved.
As Andrew Sullivan writes,
The US recognizes the marital and familial bond as the most sacred factor in deciding immigration questions. Why? Because it is understood that the right to marry whomever one chooses is an elemental human right, and that a government that insists on breaking up such marriages, or forcing those in them to leave their own country, is violating basic human rights.
Which means to say that the US government regards gay Americans as sub-human in their needs and wants and rights. Their loves and relationships mean nothing under the law every time they encounter federal authoritah. ...I am lucky to be able to apply for a Green Card on my own merits.... But most people are not so lucky. They just fall in love. Only to have their own government rip their marriage apart, or force the American into exile.
If this isn't wrong, what is?
Update More from the NY Times
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