Shirley Tan, a petite stay-at-home mother of twins, is wearing pink slippers on her feet and a black electronic bracelet around her left ankle.
"I feel like a criminal," said Tan, sitting on the sofa of the ocean-view home she shares with her longtime partner, Jaylynn Mercado, their 12-year-old sons and Mercado's mother, Renee.
In the eyes of immigration authorities, Tan is in the country illegally. Federal courts have denied her bid for asylum. But beyond that court battle, she argues that the law discriminates against her because she is a lesbian -- and cannot be sponsored for citizenship by her partner.
Later this month, unless her pleas to congressional leaders and the courts are successful, Tan, 43, will be deported to her native Philippines, more than two decades after she fled a murderous relative and began a life in the United States.
"It's a shocking thing for all of us," said Mercado, who works in commercial insurance. "All this time, we thought she was legal ... This is a nightmare."
Things likely would be different if Mercado were a man, according to legal experts.
Tan, who came legally to the United States as a visitor in 1989, wed Mercado in 2004, when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom opened City Hall to same-sex unions. Those marriages later were declared invalid, and this past November California voters approved Proposition 8, which defines marriage as between one man and one woman. The matter now is under consideration by the state Supreme Court.
If Mercado, a U.S. citizen, were a man, she could sponsor Tan for legal permanent residency, their lawyer said. But because federal law limits the definition of marriage to a man and a woman, the couple has no such option.
Congress is debating a change that would add same-sex "permanent partners" to the list of family members that a citizen or legal resident could sponsor for immigration. The Uniting American Families Act is pending on behalf of thousands of gay and lesbian couples facing immigration issues.
But the clock is ticking fast for Tan.
"If this were a heterosexual couple, things never would have gone this far," said immigration lawyer Phyllis Beech, who is representing the couple in their appeal of the deportation order issued in January. "Shirley married her partner and has been with her for more than 20 years, but in the eyes of the law, it doesn't mean anything."
So, barring a reprieve, Tan must report to immigration authorities in San Francisco on April 22 and board a plane to a place that she said feels foreign and frightening. Until that hour comes, she said, she refuses to pack her bags.
"We are trying to be optimistic," said Tan, who wears a diamond wedding ring on her left hand.
(E-mail Cynthia Hubert at chubert(at)sacbee.com)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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