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Loading ...Emergency Senate bill saves lesbian couple from deporation
04.23.2009 3:56pm EDT
(Washington) A bill introduced on the house floor yesterday by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) is keeping Jay Mercado, her partner Shirley Tan and their twin 12-year-olds together – at least for now.
Mercado, an American woman and Tan, her Filipino partner, live in Pacifica, California with their 12-year-old twin sons, both American citizens. Tan had been ordered to appear for deportation on May 10, but the emergency bill will keep the family together at least through 2010.Federal immigration law does not currently allow LGBT Americans to sponsor their partners.
Activists from around the country, including those from Marriage Equality USA, Out4Immigration, Immigration Equality and Love Exiles, learned about Tan and Mercado’s plight a month ago, and pleaded with elected officials for help. The story national prominence as a feature article in the April 20 edition of People Magazine.
“Those of us who have followed this case closely are overjoyed for this family. But this case highlights the need for Congress to pass the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA) – legislation that has been languishing for 10 years – and would help the estimated 36,000 gay and lesbian Americans in a loving and committed relationship with a foreign partner stay together in the U.S.,” said Amos Lim, co-founder of Out4Immigration.
The Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), re-introduced in February 2009 by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) would add the words “or permanent partner” to existing immigration law wherever the word “spouse” appears. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) prohibits gay and lesbian Americans from accessing equal immigration rights, along with 1,137 other rights that come with a federally recognized marriage. The UAFA currently has 97 co-sponsors in the House and 17 in the Senate. Feinstein is not one of them.
To All who have loved ones waiting in line for visas to come to the U.S. to join you… Dianne Feinstein and other politicians are writing bills to keep certain illegals in the U.S. and by doing so the # of visas issued to their country of origin is reduced by the # of pet projects the senators have chosen to endorse. Your relatives future is at stake due to these political maneuvers. Read the legislation. Don’t let these politicians bend the rules and deprive the people who are obeying the law. S.867 and S.121 are just 2 of the bills sponsored by Sen. Feinstein. Those 2 bills knock 5 people off the list of legal visas issued to those countries of origin. Documentation can be found at GovTrack.us and Thomas library of Congress.
I agree with the comments regarding Feinstein – she wants the PR firestorm to subside. She has never signed onto UAFA in the past. She can change that and be a true leader on this issue by signing on immediately and getting the rest of her colleagues in the Dem. caucus and whatever senate republicans she has influence with to do the same. If this is about fundatmental fairness, why do pols like Feinstein lag behind on this? And she wonders why she got the “pink brick” for her poor record on LGBT rights.
Okay Mr. INEXILE – this is insulting to people like me. I worked very hard on the case for Ms. Tan and every moment of the day was spent including our brothers and sister in exile. YES I personally worked hard for five weeks with no financial remuneration. I gave up my own work. When I worked I was working with you in mind. Every single mention to a politician of any Gay or Lesbian person’s plight is another feather in the cap for your visibility – and another step forward to UAFA.
What SHirley did for you was couragous and you owe her an apology. She is the first to receive this extensive mainstream visibility, and she went public to the press after being a very shy and private person. She did it because us gay activists asked her to. She did it because now that she is safe (for 1 year only – by the way) she plans to continue the fight for UAFA and intends bringing the men and women like you HOME where you belong. Some stop wining about your misfortune, egt off the jealousy potty and call LOVEEXILE.ORG and get involved! Now. Melanie Nathan http://www.oblogdeeoblogda.wordpress.com
As a gay man with a foreign born partner for the last 14 years, I am happy for Shirley Tan. It unfortunately does not help us and may others like us that have already left the US and are living in exile in other countries. This fix by the Senator was a way to just make a potential PR nightmare go away and at the same time put a feather in her own hat! Now, I guess we wait for another lesbian couple with two beautiful children that are upstanding citizens of their community and church to come along to open our politicians eyes and do something. I have written them all and never once received a response to any of my letters. Our wonderful life in LA was destroyed by having to move 3 years ago, now we wait for the law to change as our life passes us by. Imagine if your future depended on our politicians, it is not a good position to be in!
I really want this couple to be together, but this bill is as bad as the terry schiavo bill that was introduced to keep her husband from pulling the plug. It would be hard to argue that the terry schiavo bill was bad and that this legislation is good.
Passing laws that favor only certain people and not others is a bad idea. The UAFA needs to be passed and passed quickly.
a bit unfair…so are we supposed to just let this couple be deported while we may have to struggle for another 10 years to get UAFA in place? Until UAFA is in place, we should be fighting to save all deserving and otherwise law-abiding couples from deportation who are currently under threat of actual deportation (those couples who want and welcome such help)even on a one by one basis via Congress if we have to.
That may also prompt the other “Feinsteins” in Congress to stand up and say enough is enough! we have to fix this way of doing things and have to fix it now! “The ball was set in motion” by this and it is up to the LGBT community to keep this ball in motion and bring another deportation case to Congress and another and another and another until this gets fixed!
Meanwhile we should all redouble our efforts to get UAFA passed and push Congress again and again on that and push Congress to get the federal level DOMA repealed. I have written my reps in Congress about repealing the federal level of DOMA and regardless of whether Mr. Obama thinks the time is right for repealing federal DOMA or not, I am going to write my reps and my MD senators in Congress again about working toward a repeal of DOMA and about UAFA. A lot of unfair regulations and laws are backed up by the Federal level of DOMA and once that type of DOMA is repealed then other laws can be repealed more readily and the unfair system of anti LGBT laws will start falling down one after another like a set of standing dominos. This requires constant action until it all gets done. Once the momentum has been started, the moomentum has to be maintained.
Senators can not introduce legislation on the House floor. Senator Feinstein introduced S867 on the Senate Floor.
Marriage equality and only marriage equality would solve this issue, not just for this bi-national couple, but everyone.
It’s time to stop asking for piecemeal legislation which creates a patchwork of confusing laws and leaves too many loopholes for homophobes in power to exploit.
Here, I found the rest of the story, it was a private bill.
a private bill has been introduced in Congress on behalf of Shirley Tan. Melanie reports “When I spoke to Jay [Shirley's partner] today she was crying with joy and said the whole family including the boys were absolutely overwhelmed with emotion.”
The immediate impact of the bill will be that Shirley Tan should not be deported until the end of this Congress in December 2010. Actual passage of the private bill is unlikely. So the only guarantee that Shirley will not be torn from her partner and children is passage of the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA).
I know you’re understaffed and overworked, but … two GLARING errors in the first PARAGRAPH?
1. Deportation, not deporation
2. SENATOR Feinstein spoke on the floor of the SENATE, and NOT the House.
ok, they introduced a bill.
WHAT WAS THE BILL???????????????
kind of a key part of the story dont ya think?
Wow! That sounds great! I’m very happy for them. My husband and I have to live out of the US because they don’t see us as a couple. I’m not american, my husband is. He had to leave his country in order to be with me. I hope this case helps to unveil the situation of couples like us!
A bit unfair helping one couple while ignoring the rest in similar situations. Instead of trying to pass this waste of a law, pass UAFA.