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Immigration change could help gay foreign nationals facing deportation

Administration to examine deportations on case-by-case basis

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Gay News, Washington Blade, Gay Peru, Immigration

The Obama administration unveiled on Thursday new immigration policy that could enable many undocumented immigrants facing deportation to stay within the United States — a move that could enable bi-national same-sex couples at the risk of separation to stay together within the country.

Under the new guidance, immigration authorities within the Obama administration will conduct a case-by-case review of the approximately 300,000 undocumented immigrants facing possible deportation to determine which cases are high priority and low priority. Those who have been convicted of crimes or pose a security risk will be a higher priority for deportation, while those who are deemed lower priority will be taken out of the pipeline.

Administration officials will weigh a person’s ties and contributions to the community and family relationships. During an on background conference call with media outlets on Thursday, a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said these criteria are inclusive of LGBT families and same-sex couples.

NEW IN THE BLADE: NEW DHS GUIDANCE ON IMMIGRATION OMITS SAME-SEX COUPLES

“The prosecutorial discretion memo provides for the use of discretion for people with strong community ties, with community contributions and with family relationships,” the official said. “We consider LGBT families to be families in this context.”

Under current immigration code, straight Americans can sponsor their spouses for residency in the United States through the green card application process if their spouses are foreign nationals. The same rights aren’t available to gay Americans because same-sex marriage isn’t legal in many places in the country and because the Defense of Marriage Act prohibits federal recognition of these unions.

Consequently, foreign nationals who are in committed relationships with gay Americans may have to leave the United States or face deportation — which could mean separation from their partner — if these foreign nationals are discovered to be undocumented or upon expiration of their temporary visas. The new policy guidance offers another opportunity for the Obama administration to cancel the deportation of these foreign nationals, enabling them to remain in the country with their partners.

Steve Ralls, a spokesperson for Immigration Equality, said the new change seems like “good news” for bi-national same-sex couples who are facing imminent separation via a deportation or removal order.

“While Immigration Equality has not yet seen the written guidelines that will accompany the changes the agency has announced, our understanding is that the guidance is meant to be LGBT-inclusive,” Ralls said.

MORE IN THE BLADE: BLUMENTHAL SEEKS TO AID LESBIAN BI-NATIONAL COUPLE

But Ralls said further action is needed because the new guidance doesn’t affect bi-national couples who need relief, but haven’t received a deportation order or removal notice. LGBT immigration organizations have been calling on the Obama administration is issue a blanket moratorium on DOMA-related deportations to ensure that married bi-national couples can stay together in the United States.

“Those couples are still waiting for an answer as to how the administration will ensure they remain in the country and are given the same treatment and solutions, under the law, available to straight couples, too,” Ralls said.

The new policy is in response to a letter that Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) as part of a group of 20 Democratic senators wrote in April asking President Obama to set up a process to stop the deportation of people who would qualify for citizenship under the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act, or Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, would allow young, undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship if they pursue a college education or military service.

Additionally, the new change builds off an existing June 17 memo enabling immigration officials to exercise discretion in deportation cases that aren’t deemed high priority. Groups had been seeking to expand the memo to include explicit mention of bi-national same-sex couples.

MORE IN THE BLADE: WHY WAS A GAY SAUDI DIPLOMAT DENIED ASYLUM?

Lavi Soloway, founder of Stop the Deportations, said the policy unveiled on Thursday takes further this previous guidance directed to U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement agents and moves the administration “one step closer” to enacting a uniform policy to end deportations of gay foreign nationals living in the United States.

“It puts the full power of the administration behind the enforcement of prosecutorial discretion rather than simply allowing each ICE attorney or deportation officer to decide whether and how that discretion should be exercised,” Soloway said. “By undertaking a review of all pending deportation cases at the highest level and clarifying that existing prosecutorial discretion guidelines include LGBT families, Secretary [of Homeland Security Janet] Napolitano will now have the opportunity to stop every deportation involving a lesbian or gay binational couple.”

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U.S. Supreme Court

Nine trans activists arrested outside Supreme Court

Gender Liberation Movement organized demonstration against Skrmetti ruling

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Protest sign outside of the U.S. Supreme Court on June 18, 2025. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

On Friday afternoon, nine transgender organizers and allies were arrested on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court for blocking the street and protesting the recent U.S. v. Skrmetti ruling.

The ruling, decided 6-3 by the conservative majority on Wednesday, upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors. The decision will allow states to pass laws restricting gender-affirming care for minors and further minimizes bodily autonomy.

The nine arrested were part of a larger group of more than 30 protesters wearing colors of the trans Pride flag— pink, blue, and white, — standing outside of the nation’s highest court. Organizers unfurled large cloths in pink, blue, and white, shared personal testimonies about how their gender-affirming care was a matter of life and death, released pink and blue smoke, and saw nine trans participants take their hormone replacement therapy.

The protest was led by the Gender Liberation Movement, an organization that “builds direct action, media, and policy interventions centering bodily autonomy, self-determination, the pursuit of fulfillment, and collectivism in the face of gender-based sociopolitical threats.” Among the nine arrested was GLM co-founder Raquel Willis.

Before being arrested, Willis spoke to multiple media outlets, explaining that this decision was an overreach of power by the Supreme Court.

“Gender-affirming care is sacred, powerful, and transformative. With this ruling in U.S. v. Skrmetti, we see just how ignorant the Supreme Court is of the experiences of trans youth and their affirming families,” said Willis. “Everyone deserves the right to holistic healthcare, and trans youth are no different. We will continue to fight for their bodily autonomy, dignity, and self-determination just like previous generations. No court, no law, no government gave us our power, and none can take it away.”

GLM co-founder Eliel Cruz also spoke to media outlets about the Skrmetti ruling, calling it “a historical moment of fascist attacks,” and encouraged the LGBTQ community to “organize and fight back.”

“As a cisgender man, I stand in solidarity with the trans community during these escalating attacks on their safety, well-being, right to exist in this world, and ability to live a future free of violence,” Cruz said. “I’m enraged at the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a ban on gender-affirming care for youth. My heart hurts for the families and young people who this will negatively impact and harm.”

The Washington Blade reached out to Capitol Police for comment.

A spokesperson said the nine activists were arrested for violating D.C. Code §22-1307 — “Crowding, Obstructing, or Incommoding” — on First Street, N.E., after receiving three warnings.

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FDA approves new twice-yearly HIV prevention drug

Experts say success could inhibit development of HIV vaccine

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New HIV prevention drug Lenacapavir replaces oral medicines with twice-yearly injections. (Photo by fet/Bigstock)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on June 18 approved a newly developed HIV/AIDS prevention drug that only needs to be taken by injection once every six months.

The new drug, lenacapavir, which is being sold under the brand name of Yeztugo by the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences that developed it, is being hailed by some AIDS activists as a major advancement in the years-long effort to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the U.S. and worldwide.

Although HIV prevention drugs, known as pre-exposure prophylaxis medication or PrEP, have been available since 2012, they initially required taking one or more daily pills. More recently, another injectable PrEP drug was developed that required being administered once every two months.

Experts familiar with the PrEP programs noted that while earlier drugs were highly effective in preventing HIV infection – most were 99 percent effective – they could not be effective if those at risk for HIV who were on the drugs did not adhere to taking their daily pills or injections every two months. Experts also point out that large numbers of people at risk for HIV, especially members of minority communities, are not on PrEP and efforts to reach out to them should be expanded.

“Today marks a monumental advance in HIV prevention,” said Carl Schmid, executive director of the D.C.-based HIV + Hepatitis Policy Institute, in a statement released on the day the FDA announced its approval of lenacapavir.

“Congratulations to the many researchers who spent 19 years to get to today’s approval, backed up by the long-term investment needed to get the drug to market,” he said.

Schmid added, “Long-acting PrEP is now not only effective for up to six months but also improves adherence and will reduce HIV infections – if people are aware of it and payers, including private insurers, cover it without cost-sharing as a preventive service.”

Schmid and others monitoring the nation’s HIV/AIDS programs have warned that proposed large scale cuts in the budget for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by the administration of President Donald Trump could seriously harm HIV prevention programs, including PrEP-related efforts.

“Dismantling these programs means that there will be a weakened public health infrastructure and much less HIV testing, which is needed before a person can take PrEP,” Schmid said in his statement.

“Private insurers and employers must also immediately cover Yeztugo as a required preventive service, which means that PrEP users should not face any cost-sharing or utilization management barriers,” he said.

In response to a request by the Washington Blade for comment,  a spokesperson for Gilead Sciences released a statement saying the annual list price per person using Yeztugo in the U.S. is $28,218. But the statement says the company is working to ensure that its HIV prevention medication is accessible to all who need it through broad coverage from health insurance companies and some of its own support programs.

“We’ve seen high insurance coverage for existing prevention options – for example, the vast majority of consumers have a $0 co-pay for Descovy for PrEP in the U.S. – and we are working to ensure broad coverage for lenacapavir [Yeztugo],” the statement says. It was referring to the earlier HIV prevention medication developed by Gilead Sciences, Descovy.

“Eligible insured people will get help with their copay,” the statement continues. “Gilead’s Advancing Access Copay Savings Program may reduce out-of-pocket costs to as little as zero dollars,” it says. “Then for people without insurance, lenacapavir may be available free of charge for those who are eligible, through Gilead’s Advancing Access Patient Assistance Program.”

Gilead Sciences has announced that in the two final trial tests for Yeztugo, which it describes as “the most intentionally inclusive HIV prevention clinical trial programs ever designed,” 99.9 percent of participants who received Yeztugo remained negative. Time magazine reports that among those who remained HIV negative at a rate of 100 percent were men who have sex with men. 

Time also reports that some HIV/AIDS researchers believe the success of the HIV prevention drugs like Gilead’s Yeztugo could complicate the so-far unsuccessful efforts to develop an effective HIV vaccine. 

To be able to test a potential vaccine two groups of test subjects must be used, one that receives the test vaccine and the other that receives a placebo with no drug in it. 

With highly effective HIV prevention drugs now available, it could be ethically difficult to ask a test group to take a placebo and continue to be at risk for HIV, according to some researchers. 

“This might take a bit of the wind out of the sails of vaccine research, because there is something so effective in preventing HIV infection,”  Time quoted Dr. David Ho, a professor of microbiology, immunology, and medicine at New York’s Columbia University as saying.

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Activists rally in response to Supreme Court ruling

‘We won’t bow to hatred: we outlive it’

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Hope Giselle-Godsey speaks at a rally for trans rights at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation on Wednesday, June 18. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Politicians, LGBTQ activists, and allies gathered at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. on Wednesday following the ruling by the United States Supreme Court in the case of U.S. v. Skrmetti. The Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming healthcare for transgender adolescents in a 6-3 decision.

A rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court was called for by the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and other organizations following the high court ruling on Wednesday. However, due to a thunderstorm and flood watch, the scores of activists who were to attend the rally were directed to a Lutheran church down the street from the court. Undeterred, activists and community leaders were joined by U.S. Senators Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) for an indoor rally at the church.

“We know that freedom is not inevitable,” Markey told the crowd. “It is fought for by people who said ‘no’ in the face of health cuts, ‘no’ in the face of discrimination, ‘no’ in the face of invasive laws that ban life-saving and life-affirming healthcare and ‘no’ to this anti-justice, anti-freedom agenda.”

Also speaking at the rally was Deirdre Schifeling, chief political advocacy officer of the National ACLU.

“We believe transgender rights matter,” Schifeling stated. “Transgender kids matter and deserve love, support and the freedom to shape their own futures. I am still processing how the Supreme Court could disagree with such an obvious truth.”

“Today’s ruling shows us that unfortunately these attacks on our freedom will not end here,” Schifeling continued. “The Trump administration and extremist politicians across the country are continuing to target our right — our human right — to control our own bodies.”

“If politicians think that we are going to sit back and be defeated, that we are going to let them strip our rights and freedoms away without a fight, they’ve got another think coming,” Schifeling said. “We will never back down. We will never back down or give up. We will organize, we will mobilize and we will fight to protect trans rights in our communities, in our legislatures, in our elections, and in court rooms across the country.”

(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

“Today, the highest court in this land decided that the bodily autonomy of trans youth, specifically trans youth of Tennessee and states with bans harming youth across the country do not matter,” said trans advocate Hope Giselle-Godsey.

“The opponents of trans equality think that today is a victory, but history will remember it as a moment that sharpened us and not silenced us,” Giselle-Godsey continued.

“So yes, today we grieve for the people in those states where those bans exist, but we grieve in motion,” Giselle-Godsey said. “To the system that thinks that it won today, just like every other time before: you will lose again. Because we won’t bow to hatred: we outlive it. We out-organize it. We out-love it. We are still here and we are not finished yet.”

‘As we proceed, the most important pressure here is from the people,’ U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) tells a crowd of trans rights activists at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation on Wednesday, June 18. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
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