Eric Holder Halts the Deportation of a Gay Man in a Civil Union

Today, Attorney General Eric Holder stopped the deportation of a gay man and will have further review of the situation.

Metro Weekly states:

Saying the attorney general "has taken [an] extraordinary step" with the decision, attorney Eric Berndt -- the supervising attorney for the National Asylum Partnership on Sexual Minorities at the National Immigrant Justice Center -- tells Metro Weekly, "It adds some heft to our requests for prosecutorial discretion in individual cases in which the foreign partner" of a same-sex bi-national couple is seeking a green card because of his or her citizen same-sex partner.

Attorney Lavi Soloway, a co-founder of Immigration Equality, has been one of the leading attorney-advocates on the issue of asking the government -- the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security and White House -- to exercise that discretion. Soloway tells Metro Weekly in an email, "This development could be a sign that the Obama administration is looking for a way to protect gay and lesbian bi-national couples who are currently barred from the regular marriage-based immigration process by the Defense of Marriage Act.

Immigration Equality's communications director, Steve Ralls, writes, "This seems to be a step in the right direction. I have little doubt that the recent, significant Congressional pressure on DOJ, led by Senator Kerry and Congresswoman Lofgren, played a key role in Holder's decision."
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