National
Judge halts deportation proceedings for gay Venezuelan national
Court cites Holder’s order to vacate as reason to adjourn
A U.S. immigration judge on Friday halted deportation proceedings for a Venezuelan national facing expulsion from the country because of the Defense of Marriage Act in part because of a recently issued order from the Justice Department interceding in a related case.
Judge Alberto Riefkohl granted an adjournment until Dec. 16 in the case Henry Velandia, a salsa dancer who’s in a legal same-sex marriage and faces deportation to Venezuela. The judge, who heard the case in a Newark, N.J., court, could have ordered deportation on the date of the hearing and barred Velandia from returning to the United States for 10 years.
Josh Vandiver, Velandia’s spouse, had filed an I-130 marriage-based green card petition for Velandia, which was denied in January on the sole basis of DOMA. After President Obama announced in February that he would no longer defend DOMA in court because he determined the law was unconstitutional, Vandiver re-filed the petition, which remains pending with U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services.
Lavi Soloway, an attorney with Masliah & Soloway PC in New York who’s handling Velandia’s case, said the judge made his decision on the basis that Vandiver’s marriage-based green card petition is still pending and because of a recent decision by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in a related immigration case.
On Thursday, Holder issued an order to vacate for another bi-national same-sex couple in New Jersey seeking recognition of their civil union for immigration purposes, halting the potential deportation and the separation of this couple.
“Today we have won an important victory by stopping the deportation of Henry Velandia,” Soloway said. “The Immigration Judge has demonstrated that it is appropriate to proceed with caution when a marriage-based green card petition is pending precisely because the law and policy impacting lesbian and gay bi-national couples is in a state of flux. The Immigration Judge has acted to protect Josh and Henry from being torn apart at a time when new developments suggest that potential solutions for bi-national same-sex couples may be on the horizon.”
According to Soloway. Immigration & Customs Enforcement Assistant Chief Counsel David Cheng, who’s prosecuting the case on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security, agreed to the adjournment.
“The attorney felt that it was appropriate to proceed with caution and give this process a chance to play out, and, if that’s the case, then they changed their position and they agree with the judge,” Soloway said. “So they were very cooperative.”
In a statement, Vandiver said the judge “made the right decision” by postponing these proceedings and stopping, at least temporarily, Velandia’s deportation.
“We are breathing a sigh of relief that we will be able to live in peace for a few more months, now that the immediate threat of deportation has been removed,” Vandiver said. “We treasure every day we have together. But couples like us are still being torn apart every day. Every day, spouses of gay and lesbian Americans are facing deportation and denied access to green cards only because of the Defense of Marriage Act.”
Robin McGehee, director of GetEQUAL, which rallied at the Newark court in support of Velandia along with other LGBT groups, said Velandia and Vandiver’s friends are “all certainly breathing a sigh of relief” in the wake of the decision and noted the couple has “a bit of time to re-group, re-connect, and re-strategize about how to move forward.”
“It’s unbelievable that couples like Henry and Josh are being forced to go through the emotional and financial stress of this process, while straight couples experience nothing of the sort — we’re committed to standing beside this couple, and the tens of thousands of other same-sex bi-national couples who are facing similar scenarios across the country,” McGehee said.
Soloway noted the judge’s action is only temporary reprieve for Velandia and called on the Obama administration to take action to prevent the deportations of foreign nationals in same-sex marriages until a final decision is made on the constitutionality of DOMA.
“The administration must act now to institute a moratorium on all deportations of spouses of gay and lesbian Americans to ensure that all same-sex bi-national couples are protected until the fate of DOMA is determined by Congress or the Supreme Court,” Soloway said.
Questions still remain about whether Velandia will be able to remain in the United States following the hearing in December. Soloway said the implications of the attorney general’s order and possible action from the Obama administration are still unclear.
“We simply don’t know what the scenario will be come December,” Soloway said. “We are hopeful that what we are seeing is evidence that the administration understands the crisis that bi-national couples are facing and that they’re looking for ways to develop remedies and implement them.”
New York
Men convicted of murdering two men in NYC gay bar drugging scheme sentenced
One of the victims, John Umberger, was D.C. political consultant

A New York judge on Wednesday sentenced three men convicted of killing a D.C. political consultant and another man who they targeted at gay bars in Manhattan.
NBC New York notes a jury in February convicted Jayqwan Hamilton, Jacob Barroso, and Robert DeMaio of murder, robbery, and conspiracy in relation to druggings and robberies that targeted gay bars in Manhattan from March 2021 to June 2022.
John Umberger, a 33-year-old political consultant from D.C., and Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old social worker, died. Prosecutors said Hamilton, Barroso, and DeMaio targeted three other men at gay bars.
The jury convicted Hamilton and DeMaio of murdering Umberger. State Supreme Court Judge Felicia Mennin sentenced Hamilton and DeMaio to 40 years to life in prison.
Barroso, who was convicted of killing Ramirez, received a 20 years to life sentence.
National
Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information
Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources

Nine private medical and public health advocacy organizations, including two from D.C., filed a lawsuit on May 20 in federal court in Seattle challenging what it calls the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s illegal deletion of dozens or more of its webpages containing health related information, including HIV information.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, names as defendants Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and HHS itself, and several agencies operating under HHS and its directors, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration.
“This action challenges the widespread deletion of public health resources from federal agencies,” the lawsuit states. “Dozens (if not more) of taxpayer-funded webpages, databases, and other crucial resources have vanished since January 20, 2025, leaving doctors, nurses, researchers, and the public scrambling for information,” it says.
“These actions have undermined the longstanding, congressionally mandated regime; irreparably harmed Plaintiffs and others who rely on these federal resources; and put the nation’s public health infrastructure in unnecessary jeopardy,” the lawsuit continues.
It adds, “The removal of public health resources was apparently prompted by two recent executive orders – one focused on ‘gender ideology’ and the other targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) programs. Defendants implemented these executive orders in a haphazard manner that resulted in the deletion (inadvertent or otherwise) of health-related websites and databases, including information related to pregnancy risks, public health datasets, information about opioid-use disorder, and many other valuable resources.”
The lawsuit does not mention that it was President Donald Trump who issued the two executive orders in question.
A White House spokesperson couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the lawsuit.
While not mentioning Trump by name, the lawsuit names as defendants in addition to HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., Matthew Buzzelli, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health; Martin Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Thomas Engels, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration; and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.
The 44-page lawsuit complaint includes an addendum with a chart showing the titles or descriptions of 49 “affected resource” website pages that it says were deleted because of the executive orders. The chart shows that just four of the sites were restored after initially being deleted.
Of the 49 sites, 15 addressed LGBTQ-related health issues and six others addressed HIV issues, according to the chart.
“The unannounced and unprecedented deletion of these federal webpages and datasets came as a shock to the medical and scientific communities, which had come to rely on them to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, assist physicians and other clinicians in daily care, and inform the public about a wide range of healthcare issues,” the lawsuit states.
“Health professionals, nonprofit organizations, and state and local authorities used the websites and datasets daily in care for their patients, to provide resources to their communities, and promote public health,” it says.
Jose Zuniga, president and CEO of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (IAPAC), one of the organizations that signed on as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a statement that the deleted information from the HHS websites “includes essential information about LGBTQ+ health, gender and reproductive rights, clinical trial data, Mpox and other vaccine guidance and HIV prevention resources.”
Zuniga added, “IAPAC champions evidence-based, data-informed HIV responses and we reject ideologically driven efforts that undermine public health and erase marginalized communities.”
Lisa Amore, a spokesperson for Whitman-Walker Health, D.C.’s largest LGBTQ supportive health services provider, also expressed concern about the potential impact of the HHS website deletions.
“As the region’s leader in HIV care and prevention, Whitman-Walker Health relies on scientific data to help us drive our resources and measure our successes,” Amore said in response to a request for comment from the Washington Blade.
“The District of Columbia has made great strides in the fight against HIV,” Amore said. “But the removal of public facing information from the HHS website makes our collective work much harder and will set HIV care and prevention backward,” she said.
The lawsuit calls on the court to issue a declaratory judgement that the “deletion of public health webpages and resources is unlawful and invalid” and to issue a preliminary or permanent injunction ordering government officials named as defendants in the lawsuit “to restore the public health webpages and resources that have been deleted and to maintain their web domains in accordance with their statutory duties.”
It also calls on the court to require defendant government officials to “file a status report with the Court within twenty-four hours of entry of a preliminary injunction, and at regular intervals, thereafter, confirming compliance with these orders.”
The health organizations that joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs include the Washington State Medical Association, Washington State Nurses Association, Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Academy Health, Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, Fast-Track Cities Institute, International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, National LGBT Cancer Network, and Vermont Medical Society.
The Fast-Track Cities Institute and International Association of Providers of AIDS Care are based in D.C.
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent

Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has struck down guidelines by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designed to protect against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The EEOC in April 2024 updated its guidelines to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which determined that discrimination against transgender people constituted sex-based discrimination as proscribed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
To ensure compliance with the law, the agency recommended that employers honor their employees’ preferred pronouns while granting them access to bathrooms and allowing them to wear dress code-compliant clothing that aligns with their gender identities.
While the the guidelines are not legally binding, Kacsmaryk ruled that their issuance created “mandatory standards” exceeding the EEOC’s statutory authority that were “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.”
“Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,” he wrote in the opinion.
The case, which was brought by the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, presents the greatest setback for LGBTQ inclusive workplace protections since President Donald Trump’s issuance of an executive order on the first day of his second term directing U.S. federal agencies to recognize only two genders as determined by birth sex.
Last month, top Democrats from both chambers of Congress reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ-inclusive protections against discrimination into federal law, covering employment as well as areas like housing and jury service.