Jay and Shirley

31/03/09 15:25 Filed in: Living In Fear
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Shirley Tan's calm and happy life — San Mateo County housewife, mother of twin 12-year-old boys, singing in the church choir — blew up at 6:30 a.m. on Jan. 28, with a knock on the front door.

Within minutes, the immigration agent standing there had the 43-year-old Tan in handcuffs. She is scheduled to be deported to her native Philippines on Friday.

If Jay Mercado, Tan's partner of 23 years and the mother of her sons, were a different gender, it's highly unlikely that knock ever would have come. As a U.S. citizen, Mercado could have sponsored a wedded spouse for legal permanent residency. But although Mercado and Tan married in San Francisco in 2004, federal law limits the definition of marriage to a man and a woman, and same-sex partners of U.S. citizens don't have a route to legal permanent residence extended to straight married couples. It might be too late for Tan and Mercado Read story, "Binational, same-sex couples face immigration problems" by Mike Swift, Mercury News.

(Photo: by Maria J. Avila, Mercury News. Shirley Tan and her twelve-year-old son Jashley Mercado solicit help from their Rev. Piers Lahey at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Pacifica on Saturday March 28, 2008. Tan, the mother of two boys, is scheduled to be deported to the Phillipines on Friday April 3.)

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Americans take it for granted that if they fall in love with a foreigner, they will be able to sponsor their partner for residency in the United States. But there is no such option for same-sex couples. It simply does not matter how long a couple has been together, how devoted they are to each other or even if they are legally married in Massachusetts, California (before Prop 8) or a country that allows it; if the partners are the same sex, their relationship is irrelevant in the American immigration system. A matter of fact, if our marriages become known to an immigration official, it would be evidence enough (to them) of a reason to want to stay permanently in the U.S. and would be an automatic ground to deny our spouses entry, or even a visa in the future.



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