ShareThisSAN FRANCISCO - Reflecting a change in deportation policy, the Obama administration has dropped its attempt to remove a member of a same-sex California couple who overstayed his visa.
The announcement in a case pending before an immigration judge in San Francisco represents the administration's decision to put a greater focus on deporting criminals and less emphasis on removing illegal immigrants who are otherwise law-abiding and have family ties in the United States.
Families, the administration has concluded, include gay and lesbian couples.
"The administration has demonstrated it can prevent a married same-sex couple from being torn apart by a 'DOMA deportation,' " said Lavi Soloway, the couple's lawyer. He was referring to the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that bars federal benefits for same-sex couples.
As a result, Alex Benshimol, a Venezuelan who overstayed his visa after entering the country in 1999, will not be deported.
Benshimol, 46, runs a pet-grooming business and lives with his husband, Doug Gentry, 53, an information technology consultant, in Cathedral City (Riverside County). The couple married last year in Connecticut.
The government's decision was "like waking up from a bad dream," Gentry said Monday in a statement released by the couple's lawyer. "The constant fear of exile or separation is over."
Ending the case was consistent with the administration's "current priorities focusing on convicted criminal aliens and those who pose a threat to public safety," U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is in charge of deportation policy, said Monday.
Even so, the Defense of Marriage Act prohibits Benshimol from applying for legal residency, the first step toward possible citizenship. Although his deportation case is over, a future administration could try to reinstate it.
DOMA, now being challenged in court, clouds the immigration status of thousands of others in same-sex relationships.
"There is still a long fight ahead to get full equality for this couple and other couples," Soloway said.
The lawyer, who heads an organization called Stop the Deportations, said President Obama should halt removals of same-sex spouses until the courts decide whether DOMA is constitutional. Heterosexuals can sponsor their spouses for legal immigration status, but DOMA prohibits sponsorship for same-sex spouses.
Obama announced in February that he considers DOMA to be an unconstitutional act of discrimination and would no longer defend it in court. Congressional Republicans have taken over the defense in cases around the nation, including suits in San Francisco and Oakland over the denial of family insurance coverage to spouses of government employees.
Since then, immigration courts, an arm of the Justice Department, have put deportation orders of same-sex spouses on hold in a handful of cases.
(Contact Bob Egelko at begelko(at)sfchronicle.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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