Yesterday, the U.S. State Department appealed a Ninth Circuit court decision granting birthright citizenship to Ethan Dvash-Banks, the child of a same-sex bi-national couple living in Los Angeles, California. The Trump administration is saying that a child born to an American father is not in fact American and shouldn’t be allowed on U.S. soil. If the administration gets its way, the Dvash-Banks family will effectively be torn apart.
And what’s worse, this isn’t the only same-sex family the Trump administration is trying to separate.
As we reported last January, the child’s parents, American-born Andrew and Israeli-born Elad, met over a decade ago at a party while attending a university in Tel Aviv, Israel. In 2010, the two men married in Canada since same-sex marriage wasn’t legal yet in the U.S.
In 2016, the men birthed twin sons through an anonymous surrogate. Their son Aiden has his American dad’s DNA and their son Ethan has his Israeli father’s DNA. When the dads applied for their children to receive U.S. citizenship at the U.S. consulate in Toronto, the consulate required DNA tests and subsequently denied Ethan citizenship.
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According to Immigration Equality, the LGBTQ legal organization representing the men in court, the law requiring blood-tests was originally created so that unwed fathers — not married gay parents — would have to prove their blood relationships to their kids. Alan C. Morris, CEO of Immigration Equality, says that if Ethan’s parents were a different-sex couple, Ethan would be automatically considered a U.S. citizen.
“If a mother and father walk into a consulate and have a marriage certificate and birth certificate, they’re never asked any questions about the biology of the child,” Morris said. “But the converse is also true and every same-sex couple will be asked that.”
The parents ended up getting their son a temporary visa and have since applied for his green card so that he can live in the U.S. permanently. But the visa has since expired and right now Ethan is living in the U.S. indefinitely as an undocumented citizen.
Here’s a video explaining the family’s case:
In Februrary 2019, California’s ninth federal district court recognized Ethan as a U.S. citizen. But yesterday, the U.S. State Department appealed that decision, leaving the family’s future in the hands of the judicial system.
In a statement, Immigration Equality said, “The government refuses to recognize the validity of Andrew and Elad Dvash-Banks’ marriage, and continues to defend its discriminatory policy.”
Morris added, “The government’s decision to try to strip Ethan of his citizenship is unconstitutional, discriminatory, and morally reprehensible. This is settled law in the Ninth Circuit, which has already established that citizenship may pass from a married parent to a child regardless of whether or not they have a biological relationship.”
Sadly, this isn’t the only case of the Trump administration trying to rip apart a same-sex family. Allison Blixt and Stefania Zaccari are another same-sex bi-national married couple whose child, Lucas Zaccari-Blixt, was denied U.S. citizenship because his Italian-born mother gave birth to him in London.
There’s no reason to continue this discriminatory policy other than to harass same-sex families with foreign-born partners. Here’s hoping Trump loses in court.
Mack
As I said in another site posting, the State Department doesn’t recognize the Supreme Court ruling on Same Sex Marriages. This whole case stinks of Mike Pence.
UlfRaynor
And that in a nutshell is the bigger story here, this is just a round about way by the Trump administration to get the newly flipped far right Supreme Court to revisit marriage equality and overturn it.
DCguy
Countdown to the same anti-LGBT right wing troll accounts coming on here to defend Trump by changing the topic, blaming the LGBT community or screaming about Hillary.
dwes09
It stinks of BOTH Pence and Trump.
TomG
Face it, the Trump administration isn’t about equality for EVERYONE, just white straight males. Even women are considered 2nd class citizens to Trump and his uneducated hillbilly supporters.
kayakriver
Please cite your sources that aren’t CNN. What POLICY decision has he done against gays?
MacAdvisor
“What POLICY decision has he done against gays?”
You are effing kidding, right? How about the one that allows medical personnel to not treat gay people? Policy enough for ya?
jthomasmpls
There is a policy that allows medical personnel to not treat gay people? What’s the policy?
The American Medical Association has been pretty clear on medical services. The AMA states: “Physicians who offer their services to the public may not decline to accept patients because of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other basis that would constitute invidious discrimination.”
Does discrimination happen, sadly, yes.
About half of the state explicitly outlaws denial/discrimination of medical services based on sexual identity./preferences.
On a more pragmatic level, how can medical personnel identify gay people?
kayakriver
FFS, anything to attack Trump eh? You think Trump is sitting behind his desk signing decisions against gays? This would have happened during ANY administration, because it’s a very complicated immigration matter.
MacAdvisor
No, it would not have happened in any normal administration and it is not complicated. The child was born to a married couple through surrogacy. The Married Couple’s Presumption decides. That is that. There simply is not any legitimate legal argument on the other side.
ShiningSex
you’re too ignorant to be here. if you don’t see Trump’s anti-LGBT agenda, then you’re stupid. What did he just do for the military and transpeople??? Read fool. Read. Educate your ignorant self.
If you support that racist, sexist, anti-LGBT idiot then you’re a disgrace to our community.
skyboy63
Gay apologists of Trump are as pathetic as female apologists of him.
orbit5
Rules is rules.
jayceecook
@jthomasmpls The newly expanded conscience and religious freedom rule.
jthomasmpls
@jayceecook Based on what I’ve read, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on last released a final rule allowing doctors, nurses and other health workers to opt out of procedures such as abortions and sterilizations (non life threatening/emergency care) which violate their personal or religious beliefs. I think that’s a different than the denial medical services based on the patient’s sexual orientation/identity.
I get that it’s potentially or perceived as a slippery slope to open discrimination.
In my mind, by “forcing” medical professionals to perform services or procedures against their personal religious beliefs does that also imply medical professionals must perform procedures or services based on the patient religious beliefs, like female genitalia mutilation. That’s a slippery slope.
By my way of thinking, if a medical professional won’t perform a non life threatening or non emergency procedure based on their religious beliefs I would choose another medical professional more in alignment with my beliefs. Live and let live. No harm no foul.
MacAdvisor
The rule of law here is the Married Couple’s Presumption. A child born to a married couple is presumed to the child of the couple regardless of the actuality. The law has been common law for more than two hundred years. The goal is to provide for the child. Moreover, the only parties that can challenge the presumption is the two people in the couple. So, if Women A, married to Man B, has an affair with Man C and gives birth to a child biologically the child of Man C, Man B is the legal father. Only Man B can challenge this (to avoid child support for example). Man C does not have any standing and I don’t think the State Dept. does either. Lastly, the presumption becomes irrebuttable after two years from the child’s birth. After that, even Man B cannot challenge parenthood. This is not a Ninth Circuit thing, this is across the county
The State Dept. is WAY off base here. I would not even have provided the DNA sample.
Jaroslaw
MacAdvisor – the married couple presumption is for opposite sex couples since obviously 2 persons of the same sex cannot have a child. We have a third party here, the mother. Are there specific laws stating anonymous surrogacy is legal? If not, then this action is not anti gay. Other things may be anti gay, but I don’t think this is.
DavidIntl
Why in the world would this couple not have anticipated this issue and simply ensured that their child was born on U.S. soil, which would have avoided the whole problem? (assuming that they want the kid to have U.S. citizenship – honestly he might be better off as a Canadian)