A New York City judge stopped deportation proceedings of a Colombian man who is legally married to an American citizen immediately after the Supreme Court ruling struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act.
Steven Infante married Sean Brooks, an American, shortly after same-sex marriage became legal in New York state in 2011.
However, Infante is a Colombian citizen and his marriage did not exist, according to the federal government, which otherwise would have given him the same citizenship rights that binational heterosexual married couples are given,
The New York Observer reports.
When Brooks tried to file a green-card petition on behalf of Infante in 2011 with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Infante became vulnerable to deportation.
Infante tried to have his deportation canceled, arguing it would create a serious hardship for Brooks, but his request was denied based on the fact that the federal government did not recognize gay marriage.
An intern from the DOMA Project personally delivered the ruling to the immigration court, the project reported on
its Facebook page. "This morning our intern, Gabe, ran the 77-page ruling and delivered it to the Immigration Court five blocks from our office. It was still warm from the printer," the DOMA Project wrote.
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