Henry Velandia will not be deported

ONLY ON THE BLOG: In May, we featured an OFF-SET blog interview with Henry Velandia and Josh Vandiver of Princeton, New Jersey.  

Last year, Velandia, a dancer and dance teacher from Venezuela, and Vandiver, a Princeton graduate student and Ph.D candidate, were legally married in Connecticut. But under federal law—the Defense of Marriage Act—immigration authorities don’t recognize same-sex marriages and Velandia was denied legal residency in the United States. On May 6, an immigration judge temporarily halted Velendia’s deportation.

On Wednesday, June 29, 2011, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) asked the Immigration Court to "administratively close" Velandia’s deportation proceedings exercising their power of prosecutorial discretion.   ICE decided that it would no longer pursue the deportation and the judge agreed.

According to Lavi Soloway, attorney for the couple, it is the first time that ICE has closed active deportation proceedings against the spouse of a gay American.

U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (D-New Jersey) applauded the decision, saying the Velandia-Venezuela struggle underscores the ongoing injustice, discrimination, and legal uncertainty that plague same-sex couples today.

"Although I hope that federal courts will soon rule the so-called Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional," Holt said in a statement, "I will continue to push for its repeal so that no other married couple has to endure the fear and confusion that Henry and Josh lived with for so long."

On Thursday, June 30,Josh Vandiver answered a few more questions for our blog:

Do you have any idea why the government had a change of heart?

There’s no doubt in my mind that it is the direct result of our hard-fought advocacy over the past year on behalf of our marriage.  We stood up and told our story: that as a same-sex married couple our marriage is not treated equally.

Because of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), I am denied the right to sponsor my foreign-born spouse, Henry, for a green card.  The reason I’m denied this is because we’re gay.  A non-gay couple would never face a deportation like this.

We would simply like our marriage to be treated equally.  We have worked tirelessly to spread the word about this law, DOMA, and how it is tearing apart our family and the families of bi-national same-sex married couples around the country.

Thankfully Attorney General Holder said earlier this year that DOMA is unconstitutional and discriminatory.  But the deportations had continued after Holder’s decision.  That’s why we kept the pressure on the administration and ICE to stop these deportations.

Might this decision in your specific case have an impact on other bi-national same-sex couples in the United States?

Hopefully it will have a huge impact.  We have gotten to know dozens of bi-national same-sex married couples by working with the Stop the Deportations DOMA project and its founder Lavi Soloway. Together, we stood up for our marriages and for the principle that we should be treated equally.  Now, we want to see their marriages saved too.

This was a decision by the ICE Chief Counsel in Newark, NJ.  Other couples live in other areas, obviously, but we think they should be treated in the same way as we have been.  The spouses of gay and lesbian Americans should never be deported, regardless of where the couple live in theU.S.

So is it proper to send a thank-you note to an Immigration Judge?

Josh: Probably not, but we are both sending him—and ICE Chief Counsel Minichiello inNewark—the gratitude of our hearts.  They have saved our marriage.

We definitely are sending lots of thank-you notes to the people who made this historic decision happen.  Our congressman Rush Holt has been a fierce advocate for us and was joined by Senators Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez.

Our elected officials joined our cause in part because 20,000 people signed our petition to Secretary Janet Napolitano of Homeland Security asking her to stop deporting the spouses of LGBT Americans.   And we’ve been joined by some great organizational partners in the struggle for equality including AllOut, GetEQUAL, the Courage Campaign, Marriage Equality USA, and Freedom to Marry.

Henry can stay in the United States while you continue to fight for him to get his green card based on our marriage. What stands in the way of getting a green card?

What stands in the way is the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).  Until that law is repealed, our marriage won’t be treated equally.  None of the federal rights and benefits that go with marriage, including immigration rights, will be granted to any same-sex married couples until DOMA is repealed.

DOMA, enacted in 1996, put the federal government in the business of picking out certain classes of married couples and saying to them, “Your marriage will not be recognized by the federal government.  You are strangers in our eyes.”  The federal government shouldn’t be singling out couples like that.

Now that our marriage is saved, we are committing ourselves to work for full recognition of our marriage so that I can sponsor Henry for a green card like a non-gay American can.  We can’t wait to see this unconstitutional law repealed!

Now the decision has happened right as New York approved same-sex marriages, Rhode Island approved civil marriages, and President Obama held an LGBT event at the White House. What’s going on?

It’s been a tremendous week!  I couldn’t be more proud to be an American going into the July 4^th holiday.

Henry and I were at Stonewall, in New York City, on Friday night when New York passed marriage equality.  It was very moving to be at that spot with the huge, cheering crowd.  42 years before, there had been riots at Stonewall protesting brutality toward and manipulation of LGBT Americans by authorities. 

Now, we are celebrating a bold step forward towards equality, a step made by our elected officials.

We have felt so much love and support from straight allies in our struggle to save our marriage.  They’re our family, friends, and coworkers.  The victories in NY and RI are also due to straight allies standing up for equality.  So this historic week is their victory too!