Lesbian
Mother Faces Deportation

Advocates for binational same-sex couples say the wrenching predicament of a lesbian mother in California illustrates why Congress needs to pass the Uniting Americans Families Act.

Shirley Tan, 43, will likely be deported this Friday from her home in San Mateo. The deportation would separate Tan from her 12-year-old twin sons, her life partner, Jay Mercado, and her mother-in-law, sending Tan back to the Philippines, where she was a victim of horrific violence.

If Tan and Mercado were heterosexual and married, advocates say, Mercado could sponsor Tan for immigration, but federal law limits the definition of marriage to a man and woman. The discriminatory circumstances illustrate the urgent need to pass the UAFA, which would allow gay and lesbian Americans to sponsor their foreign-born partners just as straight citizens can.

UAFA was reintroduced in Congress in February, and currently has 110 cosponsors in addition to chief sponsors Rep. Jerrold Nadler and Sen. Patrick Leahy. Proponents are hopeful that a Democrat-controlled Congress and a more supportive administration can move the legislation forward.

"Until the UAFA passes, families like Jay and Shirley's are at terrible risk," Immigration Equality executive director Rachel B. Tiven said in a statement on Monday. "We are hopeful their members of Congress will introduce a private bill that would spare their twin boys and the boys' grandmother from having the country they love tear their family apart."

A potential short-term alternative to UAFA, private legislation is introduced on behalf of individuals who demonstrate compelling circumstances, such as Tan's.

Tan applied for political asylum in 1995, and thought her case was still pending, until immigration officials knocked on her door this January. She told the San Jose Mercury News that her former lawyer never told her a deportation order was issued in 2002. Her bid for asylum failed because the threat to her life in the Philippines came from a relative -- who shot her in the head when she was young over an inheritance battle -- instead of from the government.

Now, like 37,000 other couples in the United States, Tan and Mercado face the agonizing choice of either separating their family or going to live in a country their children have never known.