DOMA's Immigration Implication

Metro Weekly: The fallout from the Feb. 23 announcement by Attorney General Eric Holder that the Justice Department will no longer defend Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act - the federal definition of marriage - has quickly moved from questions about existing DOMA challenges to questions about how the new DOJ interpretation could impact immigration law. On Feb. 25, attorney Lavi Soloway announced that he was filing multiple requests on behalf of married, same-sex bi-national couples where one spouse is facing deportation. A day earlier, on Feb. 24, Soloway began the process in a case before the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) in which Joshua Vandiver is seeking to sponsor his husband, Henry A. Velandia Ferreira, for immigration purposes. Velandia had come to the U.S. from Venezuela on a work visa, which has since expired. ordinarily, an American spouse would be able to sponsor his spouse for immigration purposes, but DOMA prevents Vandiver from sponsoring Velandia - despite the fact that they were legally married in Connecticut. As soon as Wednesday, March 9, another couple - Edwin Echegoyen and Rodrigo Martinez - face separation, as Martinez is due to surrender in Baltimore for deportation to El Salvador on that day.