Tim Coco and Genesio J. Oliveira, a same-sex couple married in Massachusetts in 2005, successfully challenged this policy and developed a model since followed by other immigration activists. The U.S. refused to recognize their marriage and in 2007 Oliveira, a Brazilian national, accepted "voluntary departure" and returned to Brazil. They conducted a national press campaign that won the attention of Senator John F. Kerry, who first lobbied Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. without success. He then gained the support of United States Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano who granted Oliveira humanitarian parole, enabling the couple to reunite in the U.S. in June 2010. Humanitarian parole is granted on a case-by-case basis at the Secretary's discretion.
On September 28, 2011, in Lui v. Holder, U.S. District Court Judge Stephen V. Wilson rejected a challenge against DOMA, citing Adams v. Howerton (1982). The plaintiffs in that case had unsuccessfully challenged the denial of immediate relative status to the same-sex spouse of an American citizen. Early in 2012, two bi-national same-sex couples were granted "deferred action" status, suspending deportation proceedings against the non-U.S. citizen for a year. A similar Texas couple had a deportation case dismissed in March 2012, leaving the non-citizen spouse unable to work legally in the United States and no longer subject to the threat of deportation.
On January 5, 2012, a U.S. District Court in Illinois accepted the suit of a same-sex binational couple, Demos Revelis and Marcel Maas, married in Iowa in 2010, seeking to prevent the USCIS from applying Section 3 of DOMA to Revelis' application for a permanent residence visa for Maas and, in the court's words, "that their petition be reviewed and decided on the same basis as other married couples." The BLAG has argued for the suit to be dismissed, and responses from the plaintiffs' attorneys and the DOJ are due April 9.
On April 2, 2012, five bi-national same-sex couples represented by Immigration Equality and Paul, Weiss filed a lawsuit, Blesch v. Holder, in District Court for the Eastern District of New York, claiming that Section 3 of DOMA violates their equal protection rights by denying the U.S. citizen in the relationship the same rights in the green card application process granted a U.S. citizen who is in a relationship of partners of different sexes
In August 2007, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Finstuen v. Crutcher ordered Oklahoma to issue a revised birth certificate showing both adoptive parents to a child born in Oklahoma who had been adopted by a same-sex couple married elsewhere. By contrast, Louisiana in Adar v. Smith successfully defended in federal court its refusal to amend the birth certificate of a child born in Louisiana and adopted in New York by a same-sex married couple, who sought to have a new certificate issued with their names as parents as is standard practice for Louisiana-born children adopted by opposite-sex married couples.
On October 2, 2009, a Texas judge granted a divorce to two men married in Massachusetts. On August 31, 2010, the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas reversed the lower court's ruling. On January 7, 2011, the Third Court of Appeals in Austin allowed a divorce granted by a lower court to a lesbian couple married in Massachusetts to stand.
A majority of the states, including some that have benefits for same-sex relationships, have restricted recognition of marriage to unions of one man and one woman either by statute law or an amendment to their state constitution. Most do not recognize same-sex unions from other jurisdictions, including other jurisdictions of the United States. States that permit same-sex marriages recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions. Connecticut,
Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, and the District of Columbia allow marriages between persons of the same sex. Washington state is scheduled to permit them beginning June 7, 2012, unless sufficient signatures are collected by June 6 to subject the state's same-sex marriage law to a referendum in November. Same-sex marriages become legal in Maryland on January 1, 2013, unless blocked by a referendum.
California, which sanctioned same-sex marriages for several months in 2008 and has a ban (Proposition 8) on same-sex marriage that is the subject of litigation, recognizes same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions as equivalent to marriages in all but name. New Mexico, Other states that recognize same-sex marriages as marriage-like contracts under the name of civil union or domestic partnership include Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island Maine, Wisconsin and Washington.
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