Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Victory for Monica and Cristina! Government Closes Deportation Case


BREAKING: Immigration & Customs Enforcement Closes Deportation Case Against Argentinean Lesbian, Monica Alcota, Based on Ties to Community Including Marriage to her Spouse, Cristina Ojeda

This is wonderful news. Congratulations to this couple and their attorney Lavi Soloway, founder of Stop the Deportations, for doing exactly that - stopping the deportation of Monica Alcota.

According to Lavi, "This is the first time the government has asked an immigration court to close removal proceedings against the gay or lesbian spouse of an American citizen since the formation of an inter-agency prosecutorial discretion working group began its work on November 17 with the goal of finding and closing all 'low-priority' deportation cases."

This is also the third significant high-profile victory for Lavi and clients this year. Earlier this year Out4Immigration along with Get EQUAL rallied behind the efforts of Stop the Deportation and two other couples - Henry and Josh and Alex and Doug.

Read more about Monica and Cristina's case at Stop the Deportations.

Sign and circulate the Out4Immigration petition for ICE and the Department of Homeland Security to clearly state in their guidelines that married same-sex binational couples be treated as family in the eyes of immigration law. At least three times this year, sympathetic judges have ruled accordingly, as in the case of Monica and Cristina. But an unsympathetic judge could have ruled differently. We need to be specifically and clearly included in standard guidelines so that there is no room for error and a loving, committed couple cruelly torn apart.

Sign the petition here!


2 comments:

Jen said...

yay! congrats!

Unknown said...

really immigration lawyers are helping citizens to get their right in a proper and easy way.