Please let's end the deportations of same-sex spouses

For some gay couples, fight goes on to marry — and stay in the US: For binational gay couples, New York's same-sex marriage law doesn't help

While many gay couples in New York tie the knot on Sunday, when same-sex marriage becomes legal in the state, Ashley Abraham-Hughes and her wife, Corinne, will be watching the festivities from the other side of the Atlantic.

That’s because since U.S. federal law still does not recognize same-sex marriage, and since Corinne is British, the couple was forced to move to Britain, where their union — they wed in Connecticut in 2009 — is legal.

“While I do still love the U.S. and I always will, I am very resentful of the fact that I was effectively forced to become an expat,” said Abraham-Hughes, a 27-year-old who grew up in Pittsford in western New York and now lives in Manchester. “It’s absolutely ridiculous, and I just think the thinking on this whole issue is completely wrong.”

The couple’s plight is one likely facing many of the estimated 36,000 binational gay couples in the U.S., where the foreign partner in the relationship can face deportation and a 10-year ban from returning to America if they don’t already have or find a legal way to stay in the country.

Essentially they didn't believe him because his English is poor

but he was born in the United States. He just spent a lot of his childhood in Mexico. But considering he had several forms of legitimate identification, it's a shame that they pressured and deported him.

Wrongfully deported American home after 3 month fight: U.S. birth certificate wasn't enough to persuade border authorities

A Texas-born U.S. citizen who was detained, questioned and deported to Matamoros, Mexico, in the middle of the night has been allowed to re-enter the United States, ending a nearly three-month ordeal.

Luis Alberto Delgado, 19, was carrying his American birth certificate, Social Security card and Texas ID when he was pulled over in a routine traffic stop on June 17, according to Houston immigration lawyer Isaias Torres, who represented him in his legal battle for repatriation.

A South Texas sheriff’s deputy who apparently believed the documents were not authentic handed Delgado over to U.S. border agents. After eight hours of questioning, Torres said, Delgado felt pressured to sign a document agreeing to voluntary removal from the country and waiving his right to a lawyer. The Border Patrol then drove Delgado to Matamoros and left him, he said.

Granted, he did sign a document allowing them to deport him, but I'm not sure how much he understood about what was happening. At nowhere in the article did it mention whether he was given an interpreter. There are plenty of citizens out there who have broken English at best (and not just Spanish-speakers), and although that's a debate in and of itself, it's no reason to throw someone out of a country where he was born and had a completely legal right to be working and living.

I don't think they should be thrown out of the country

Foreign-Born Widows Face Deportation

If a green card application is pending at the time of a US-born spouse's death, then the widow/er who is foreign-born is subject to deportation, even if there are children from the marriage who are US citizens. For that matter, if the application was approved but the spouse died before the marriage was two years old, it is subjected to deportation consideration on a case-by-case basis. The only exception is if the spouse was an active member of the US military.

It seems a shame to kick out a legal immigrant after she or he has already suffered great personal loss. In the cases presented in this story, one man died trying to save drowning children and was posthumously awarded one of the Coast Guard's highest honours, and two died in Iraq as military contractors, supporting the armed forces there. That their spouses are facing deportation because of their deaths is a slap in the face of their heroism.

It seems to me that maybe this crack in the sidewalk should be mended. In the meantime, if you're a couple that has a US citizen and a foreign national together, by all means do the paperwork for permanent residency as soon as it can be done...your future may depend upon it.

For more information about this, including the class action lawsuit that has been filed to try to change things, see Surviving Spouses Against Deportation.