For years it seemed that Cristina Ojeda would be separated from her Argentina-born wife Monica Alcota because the so-called Defense of Marriage Act denied the legally married couple access to a green card. But they stuck out the protracted deportation legal process and found that Obama made good on his promise to stop deporting “low-priority”, foreign born LGBT spouses (even though the Department of Homeland Security forgot to mention it in their “prosecutorial discretion” guidelines). Alcota now gets to stay in the U.S. because of her community ties and her good behavior.
But what about legally married LGBT couples like disabled U.S. Coast Guard veteran Benjamin Anderson and his long-term Italian-born partner Mattia Lumaca? They don’t want to break by overstaying Lumaca’s visa like Alcota did? But the alternative, moving to Italy, isn’t great either.
This past Wednesday, Anderson married Lumaca in Manhattan ceremony. But because Lumaca’s visa runs out in a month, the couple has decided to move to Italy where their lawyer says they can receive better immigration benefits based on their New York marriage, including medical and tax benefits they wouldn’t receive as a federally non-recognized couple in the U.S..
“We were told, ‘Well, you can always go off status,'” Anderson told The NY Daily News. “But we’re not illegal people. We don’t want to do anything illegal.”
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Alcota and Ojeda had a high profile lawyer Lavi Soloway who kept their case in the limelight as part of a larger campaign to stop the DOMA deportations. But not all bi-national LGBT couples can afford the time, money or stress of navigating the immigration courts as newlywed outlaws, especially when an immigrant like Lumaca could get arrested for overstaying his visa.
So while Anderson and Lumaca fly off to Italy, the countless other bi-national LGBT couples here face a critical choice while the courts sort out the DOMA mess: overstay their visas and become criminals in the U.S. or leave for a more legally secure life elsewhere. Not a pleasant decision for a newlywed couple to make.
Hyhybt
…and that’s if you *can* leave. If the other country won’t have you either, or if you cannot afford to give up your job (and who can?)…
LandStander
@Hyhybt: Good point, it is not as easy as some people may think to get in to another country. I’ve looked into moving out of the US (like Canada) but they will not take me unless I already have a job there (without living there, how?), or have a college degree in something they really want (like engineering or something). This Horticulture student may be SOL.
Steven
As half of a bi-national couple (I’m American, my partner is Chinese, we are currently living in China), I can tell you I now feel discriminated against every day by the U.S. government. From big, career/family-related decisions down to my day-to-days, I feel like I have to change my life significantly to be with the man I love. Living abroad (especially in a country that has similarly terrible laws regarding lgbt rights) makes it even harder, as we are currently stuck here with no rights, and can’t go back to America since we don’t have rights there either. I agree whole-heartedly with the above two comments. If you think it’s hard as an American to get a job/visa to another country, just imagine what it’s like for Chinese nationals (it’s EXTREMELY hard). It’s disheartening to think that the country I grew up in and planned to live my life in cares so little about the freedom and prosperity of its citizens.
Jerry
The news usually tells about bi-national couples who reside in the U.S. But, there are thousands of bi-national couples (where one is a U.S. citizen) who are living outside the U.S. and not reported in the news. In my case, I moved to South Africa hoping that my Pakistani partner could join me, but he’s been unable to get a visa. Guess what? Homophobia is entrenched in governmental agencies even in a country like South Africa where it’s legal for same-sex couples to marry. So, now we have to find somewhere else to be together. Several countries have same-sex marriage, or even let a citizen bring his/her life partner into the country. However, being able to relocate and gain residency or citizenship is not an easy thing to accomplish. For the U.S. to have such an obviously discriminatory law keeping its citizens from being with the person they love is disheartening to me and I’m sure to the thousands like me.