Did The U.S. Government Just Decide It’s Going To Stop Deporting Married Foreign Gays?

With President Obama no longer supporting the piece of DOMA that bars the federal government from recognizing legal same-sex marriages, the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services has signaled it will no longer move to deport gay foreign partners, who previously were treated as legal strangers from their spouses, unable to be sponsored for citizenship. So far just two federal immigration districts (Washington D.C. and Baltimore) have adopted the “on pause” policies, though that’s enough to have immigration experts assuming the policy shift is a national one. The move affects couples like Henry Velandia and Josh Vandiver, who married in Connecticut in October and appealed Henry’s deportation back to Venezuela, and we’ve already seen evidence of major leniency granted to other bi-national couples, though whether that’s because of official immigration rules or understanding judges remains to be seen.