Defense of Marriage Act and Immigration

Bi-national same-sex couples are kept from legally living in the United States by DOMA's Section 3, which prevents one spouse from sponsoring the other for a green card. Following some uncertainty after the Obama Administration determined Section 3 to be unconstitutional, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) reaffirmed its policy of denying such applications. With respect to obtaining a visitor's visa, Bureau rules treat bi-national same-sex spouses the same as bi-national opposite-sex unmarried partners under the classification "cohabiting partners".
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.

Advertisement:Valentine's Day Celebrations And Gifts For Your Lovely Personality, Save 70.0% on select products from BALEAF with promo code 70FKOUX3, through 1/31 while supplies last.,  Jewellery and Clothes of First Ladies, 

Muslim immigration

Small-scale migration to the U.S. by Muslims began in 1840, with the arrival of Yemenites and Turks, and lasted until World War I. Most of the immigrants, from Arab areas of the Ottoman Empire, came with the purpose of making money and returning to their homeland. However, the economic hardships of 19th-Century America prevented them from prospering, and as a result the immigrants settled in the United States permanently. These immigrants settled primarily in Dearborn, Michigan; Quincy, Massachusetts; and Ross, North Dakota. Ross, North Dakota is the site of the first documented mosque and Muslim Cemetery, but it was abandoned and later torn down in the mid 1970s. A new mosque was built in its place in 2005.

1906 Bosnian Muslims in Chicago, Illinois, started the Džemijetul Hajrije (Jamaat al-Khayriyya) (The Benevolent Society; a social service organization devoted to Bosnian Muslims). This is the longest lasting incorporated Muslim community in the United States. They met in Bosnian coffeehouses and eventually opened the first Islamic Sunday School with curriculum and textbooks under Bosnian scholar Sheikh Ćamil Avdić (Kamil Avdich) (a graduate of al-Azhar and author of Survey of Islamic Doctrines).

1907 Lipka Tatar immigrants from the Podlasie region of Poland founded the first Muslim organization in New York City, the American Mohammedan Society.

1915, what is most likely the first American mosque was founded by Albanian Muslims in Biddeford, Maine. A Muslim cemetery still exists there.

1920 First Islamic mission station was established by an Indian Ahmadiyya Muslim missionary, followed by the building of the Al-Sadiq Mosque in 1921.

1934 The first building built specifically to be a mosque is established in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

1945 A mosque existed in Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest Arab-American population in the U.S.

Construction of mosques sped up in the 1920s and 1930s, and by 1952, there were over 20 mosques. Although the first mosque was established in the U.S. in 1915, relatively few mosques were founded before the 1960s. Eighty-seven percent of mosques in the U.S. were founded within the last three decades according to the Faith Communities Today (FACT) survey. California has more mosques than any other state.

Chinese Muslims have immigrated to the United States and lived within the Chinese community rather than integrating into other foreign Muslim communities. Two of the most prominent Chinese American Muslims are the Republic of China National Revolutionary Army Generals Ma Hongkui and his son Ma Dunjing who moved to Los Angeles, California after fleeing from China to Taiwan. Pai Hsien-yung, son of the Chinese Muslim General Bai Chongxi, is a Chinese Muslim writer who moved to Santa Barbara, California after fleeing from China to Taiwan.

Green Card Lottery

Diversity Immigrant Visa program is a United States congressionally-mandated lottery program for receiving a United States Permanent Resident Card. It is also known as the Green Card Lottery. The lottery is administered on an annual basis by the Department of State and conducted under the terms of Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Section 131 of the Immigration Act of 1990 (Pub. L. 101-649) amended INA 203 to provide for a new class of immigrants known as "diversity immigrants" (DV immigrants). The Act makes available 50,000 permanent resident visas annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.

Distribution and lottery process

The visas are distributed on a regional basis, with each region sending fewer immigrants to the US in the previous 5 years receiving more diversity visas. Currently, Africa and Europe receive about 80% of the visas in the lottery.In addition, no single country can receive more than 7% of the total number of visas (3,500).

In order to allow for those who do not pursue immigrant visas, and for the applicants who do not qualify, more 'winners' are selected in the lottery than there are visas available. Hence being selected from the lottery does not guarantee an immigrant visa to the U.S. To receive a diversity visa and immigrate to the United States, 'winners' must meet all eligibility requirements under U.S. law to qualify, and must be interviewed before the 50,000 green cards are distributed. Requirements include at least a high school diploma, or its equivalent, or two years of work experience in an occupation requiring at least two years training.

Chances to get visa for a winner

Those are the average numbers per continent, in reality they differ from country to country and do not depend on the continent at all. For a country with statistically significant amount of winners (more than 100) the highest chance to get a visa per winner in DV-2009 was Nepal, Asia (85.4%) and the lowest was Senegal, Africa (14.05%) Those numbers include lack of desire to get a visa by a winner who is a visa applicant or inability to satisfy visa requirements.

2010 Results

For the 2010 Diversity Visa Lottery, the winning applicants were apportioned as follows: 

Region Winner Allocation Country with Highest Number of Winners Countries with High Fraud Level (percent of entries which are illegitimate and therefore disqualified during selection process)

Africa 52.63 % Ghana Nigeria 82.77%, Egypt 70.54% Ethiopia 68.57%, Sierra Leone 46.21%, Sudan 30.94%, Ghana 24.68%, Guinea 23.81%, Liberia 17.93%, Cameroon 11.64%

Europe 29.04 % Ukraine Ukraine 71.91%

Asia 14.62 % Bangladesh Bangladesh 78.95%

South and Central America and the Caribbean 1.93 % Venezuela

Oceania 1.76 % Australia

North America 0.02% Bahamas

Frauds and scams

There is no charge to enter the diversity visa lottery, and the only way to do so is by completing and sending the electronic form available at the U.S. Department of State's website during the registration period. However, there are numerous companies and websites that charge a fee in order to complete the form for the applicant. The Department of State and the Federal Trade Commission have warned that some of these businesses falsely claim to increase someone's chances of winning the lottery, or that they are affiliated with the U.S. government.

There have also been numerous cases of fraudulent emails and letters which falsely claim to have been sent by the Department of State and that the recipient has been granted a Permanent Resident Card. These messages prompt the recipients to transfer a "visa processing fee" as a prerequisite for obtaining a "guaranteed" green card. The messages are sometimes sent to people who never participated in the lottery and can look trustworthy as they contain the recipient's exact name and contact details and what appears to be a legal notice.

The Department of State has issued a warning against the scammers. It notes that any email claiming the recipient to be a winner of the lottery is fake because the Department has never notified and will not notify winners by email. The Department has urged recipients of such messages to notify the Internet Crime Complaint Center about the scam.

Over 13.6 million applications for the 2008 Diversity Visa Lottery (DV-2010) were submitted — an increase of 4.5 million, or 50%, from the 9.1 million applications submitted in the 2007 Diversity Visa Lottery (DV-2009).

Starting with the DV-2008, several questions and options for answers have been added. Applicants are now required to provide information, such as the country where they currently live and their highest level of education achieved, in the Electronic Diversity Visa Entry Form (E-DV Entry Form).

The open registration period for the lottery was restored from 60 days to 30 days beginning with the calendar year 2010 diversity visa lottery (DV-2012).