August 27, 2007
TIM COCO, 46, runs a successful advertising agency in Haverhill. Six years ago he met Genesio Januario Oliveira, who was visiting Boston on vacation from his home in Brazil. The two fell in love and in 2005, under rights protected by the Massachusetts Constitution, they were married. Since then, they have lived happily and quietly in a Boston suburb with their dog, Q-Tip.
Except that two weeks ago Oliveira was forced to return to Brazil under orders from the US Board of Immigration Appeals, which denied his application for the asylum status he hoped would allow him to stay in the United States with his husband. The couple needed to pursue the asylum route because their same-sex marriage is not recognized by the federal government, and federal laws supersede states' when it comes to immigration.
According to the 2000 US Census, some 35,000 same-sex couples who list themselves as "unmarried partners" similarly include one person who is a US citizen and one person who is not. They do not all try to follow the law as dutifully as Coco and Oliveira. Indeed, Oliveira is probably rare among immigrants for complying with the BIA's June order to "voluntarily depart" within 60 days or risk deportation, fines, and a 10-year bar from applying for another US visa. When he arrived at the US consulate in Sao Paulo to certify he had left within the 60 days, his visa was canceled. "I guess you don't get any points for playing by the rules," says Tim.
Because Congress passed -- and former President Clinton signed -- the mean-spirited Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, no federal rights extend to the roughly 9,000 married same-sex couples in Massachusetts. There are more than 1,000 different benefits -- from filing joint income taxes to receiving Social Security benefits -- that are denied to same-sex couples everywhere in the country, whether they live in a state that recognizes their marriage or civil union status or not. The ability of a US citizen to sponsor a husband or wife for immigration to the United States, called a form I-130, is just one of them. "Same-sex couples are utterly shut out of that process," says Mary Bonauto, the lawyer who argued the Goodridge case before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court that led to legalized gay marriage in the state
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