National
Bi-national couple files class-action suit against DOMA
Same-sex couple faces relocation to the Philippines
A bi-national couple in California and their son have filed a lawsuit against the Defense of Marriage Act in court in attempt to avoid separation or relocation to the Philippines.
The lawsuit, Aranas v. Napolitano, was filed Thursday by the Center for Human Rights on Constitutional Law on behalf of a Filipino foreign national along with her 25-year-old son and her U.S. citizen spouse. The class-action suit is pending before the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
Jane DeLeon, an immigrant from the Philippines who came to the United States in 1989, has lived with her U.S. citizen partner in California, Irma Rodriguez, for twenty years. They were married in 2008 prior to passage of Proposition 8. DeLeon had her son, Martin Aranas, in a previous marriage with a man and he came to the United States when he was nine years old. His legal status is dependent on his mother’s.
DeLeon and Aranas had temporary lawful status for several years while their visa applications were being processed. DeLeon was approved for an immigrant visa based on her employment, but because she entered the country using the name of her then common-law husband, she needed a I-601 waiver from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service to retain legal status.
According to the lawsuit, DeLeon tried many avenues to obtain the waiver, but was denied in every attempt. Ultimately, DeLeon made the case the relocation to the Philippines would cause undue hardship for the couple. The complaint says Rodriguez suffers from hypertension and the medication she takes, Ultram, isn’t available in country. The lawsuit also cites the State Department annual human rights report and its assertion that the Philippines can be a hostile place for LGBT people.
Nonetheless, on Nov. 9, the federal government denied the application, citing Section 3 of DOMA, which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriage. According to a news statement, DeLeon was advised that her temporary lawful status was revoked and if she didn’t depart the country within 12 months she would be barred from reentry for a minimum of ten years.
In the statement, DeLeon said she and her family “pray that the administration will change its mind” and grant her relief so that she’s able to stay within the country.
“Irma and I have committed to each other for the rest of our lives,” DeLeon said. “We now face being forced to move to the Philippines or breaking up our family only because we are legally married women. We would face persecution in the Philippines because we are a same sex couple, not to mention dire poverty, separation from our extended families who live here, and lack of access to medical treatment Irma needs.”
Aranas also said he wants to see the administration change its decision so both he and his mother can remain together in the United States.
“I have attended school here and continue to attend school while working part-time,” Aranas said. “My legalization depends on my mother’s case. After many years of having temporary legal status, I now face being in ‘illegal’ status only because my mother is in a same sex marriage. I hope and pray that President Obama will allow me and the hundreds or thousands of children of gay married couples to continue living here with some legal protection until the courts decide whether denying our parents immigration benefits is constitutional.”
Plaintiffs contend DOMA is unconstitutional because it violates the due process and equal protection guarantees of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The prayer for relief calls for the court to certify a class of similarly situated same-sex married couples and to rule that applying DOMA in this matter is unlawful. Additionally, the lawsuit asks for a temporary injunction preventing the federal government from removing or detaining plaintiffs or denying them access to employment.
Peter Schey, an attorney with the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, said he hopes the lawsuit prompts the administration to change its policy and offer across the board relief for DeLeon’s family and those who are similarly situated.
“To discriminate against this population by requiring that they live underground, work illegally, or worse be deported, while the courts address the constitutionality of DOMA is unconscionable,” Schey said. “If President Obama understood that undocumented youth are entitled to temporary protection from deportation while Congress grabbles with their status, he should understand that same sex married couples are entitled to temporary protection from deportation while the courts decide if they agree with his administration that DOMA is unconstitutional.”
Lavi Soloway, an immigration attorney and founder of the Stop the Deportations, said the case is the sixth to be filed in federal court in which a married bi-national couple has challenged DOMA. Soloway, who isn’t involved in the litigation, said the lawsuit takes its place at the back of line behind nearly 20 other cases challenging DOMA and predicted that the two cases on appeal to the Supreme Court would be resolved by Summer 2013 — much sooner than the resolution of the latest case.
Still, Soloway said the filing of the lawsuit “highlights the urgent need” for the Obama administration to act on its own accord and put marriage-based green card application by gay families on hold in addition to instituting a moratorium on DOMA-based deportations.
“The Obama administration has refused to act to protect LGBT families impacted by DOMA in the immigration context, despite strenuous efforts by members of both the House and Senate to urge implementation of these remedies,” Soloway said. “Thousands of gay and lesbian Americans struggle every day with the crisis of expiring visas, separation, exile, and deportation caused solely by DOMA. This can end now if the Obama administration uses the power of the executive branch to implement remedies to protect our families until DOMA is gone.”
The Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly said it would continue to enforce to DOMA in the face of calls to hold marriage-based green cards for same-sex couples in abeyance. The administration has said it would examine potential deportations on a case-by-case basis and would consider low priority individuals with ties to the community, including LGBT families.
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.
The White House
Trump travels to Middle East countries with death penalty for homosexuality
President traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates
Homosexuality remains punishable by death in two of the three Middle East countries that President Donald Trump visited last week.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the handful of countries in which anyone found guilty of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual relations could face the death penalty.
Trump was in Saudi Arabia from May 13-14. He traveled to Qatar on May 14.
“The law prohibited consensual same-sex sexual conduct between men but did not explicitly prohibit same-sex sexual relations between women,” notes the State Department’s 2023 human rights report, referring specifically to Qatar’s criminalization law. “The law was not systematically enforced. A man convicted of having consensual same-sex sexual relations could receive a sentence of seven years in prison. Under sharia, homosexuality was punishable by death; there were no reports of executions for this reason.”
Trump on May 15 arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The State Department’s 2023 human rights report notes the “penalty for individuals who engaged in ‘consensual sodomy with a man'” in the country “was a minimum prison sentence of six months if the individual’s partner or guardian filed a complaint.”
“There were no known reports of arrests or prosecutions for consensual same-sex sexual conduct. LGBTQI+ identity, real or perceived, could be deemed an act against ‘decency or public morality,’ but there were no reports during the year of persons prosecuted under these provisions,” reads the report.
The report notes Emirati law also criminalizes “men who dressed as women or entered a place designated for women while ‘disguised’ as a woman.” Anyone found guilty could face up to a year in prison and a fine of up to 10,000 dirhams ($2,722.60.)
Trump returned to the U.S. on May 16.
The White House notes Trump during the trip secured more than $2 trillion “in investment agreements with Middle Eastern nations ($200 billion with the United Arab Emirates, $600 billion with Saudi Arabia, and $1.2 trillion with Qatar) for a more safe and prosperous future.”
Former President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2022.
Saudi Arabia is scheduled to host the 2034 World Cup. The 2022 World Cup took place in Qatar.
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