WATCH: Binational LGBT Couples Reveal Their Struggles

Heather Morgan, Maria del Mar Verdugo

The five couples who are serving as plaintiffs in the Immigration Equality lawsuit against the Defense of Marriage Act tell why state recognition of marriage isn't enough to afford them full equality, and how that affects their lives together, in a video recorded by website RawStory.

The immigration rights organization Immigration Equality filed Blesch v. Holder on April 2 on behalf of five married same sex couples who face forcible separation at the discretion of the U.S. government under the Defense of Marriage Act because one spouse is not an American citizen. The plaintiffs —Edwin Blesch and his husband Tim Smulian, Frances Herbert and her wife Takao Ueda, Heather Morgan and her wife Maria del Mar Verdugo, Santiago Ortiz and his husband Pablo Garcia, and Kelli Ryan and her wife Lucy Truman —discuss their difficult situations. 

Watch the video below.