National
54 groups call on Obama to take action for bi-national couples
Letter asks DHS to place on hold marriage-based green card applications


54 groups are calling on the White House to hold the marriage-based green cards for bi-national couples in abeyance. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
A coalition of LGBT and immigration advocacy groups are teaming up for the first-time ever to call on the Obama administration to take action on behalf of bi-national same-sex couples in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to take up litigation challenging DOMA.
In a letter written Monday to President Obama and other administration officials, the groups call on the administration to place on hold the marriage-based green card applications for bi-national same-sex couples as observers await a final decision from the Supreme Court on DOMA’s constitutionality.
“With the Supreme Court’s decision to rule on DOMA’s constitutionality, we will know by next June whether or not applications for lawful permanent residence for lesbian and gay spouses will ultimately be approvable,” the letter states. “Therefore, we are only asking that, in the interim, these applications be held for a period of a few months. Doing so will prevent extreme hardship to lesbian and gay immigrant families. By holding applications for lawful permanent residence in abeyance neither granting them nor denying them LGBT families can remain securely together in the U.S. until the Supreme Court issues its ruling next year.”
Among the 54 signatories of the letter are LGBT groups such as Immigration Equality, the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force as well as the immigration groups such as the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund (MALDEF) and the National Council of La Raza.
Rachel Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality, said in a statement the Supreme Court’s decision to rule on DOMA signals the anti-gay law is near its end, which creates an opportune moment for the Obama administration to take action.
“The Supreme Court’s decision to review DOMA means we now have a date-certain for a final determination about the law,” Tiven said. “It makes no sense to continue denying green card applications which, if the law is struck down by the court, would be approved. By holding these applications, the administration can ensure couples will not be separated or forced into exile.”
Straight Americans can sponsor their foreign national spouses for residency in the United States. However, that option isn’t available to gay Americans in legal same-sex marriages to foreign nationals because of the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriage. Under current immigration code, bi-national same-sex couples could be in danger of separation and the immigrant in the relationship without legal status could be subject to deportation. Legislation known as the Uniting American Families Act would address the issue, although the bill hasn’t moved forward.
In the letter, the groups advocacy point out that the Obama administration has taken a similar course of action in past — holding the green card applications of immigrant widows of U.S. citizens in abeyance while litigation was pursued on their behalf — in addition to holding in abeyance applications for HIV-positive foreign nationals while they awaited the end to the HIV travel ban.
Groups such as Immigration Equality have called on the Obama administration for some time to hold the marriage-based green cards in abeyance for bi-national couples, but each time in response the Department of Homeland Security says it will continue to enforce DOMA as long as it’s on the books. According to an article earlier this year in The Advocate, White House officials told LGBT advocacy groups during a meeting that the Obama administration would not take this course of action to help same-sex couples.
But Steve Ralls, spokesperson for Immigration Equality, said this letter marks the first time that LGBT and immigration groups have jointly made the request to the Obama administration.
“We have made the request before – prior to the SCOTUS cert announcement – with a smaller group of LGBT organizations,” Ralls said. “The coalition this time, however, is much larger and includes our allies in the immigration movement for the first time, too.”
In response to a request to comment on the letter, a White House spokesperson referred questions to DHS, which offered the same position articulated earlier.
Peter Boogard, a DHS spokesperson, said, “Pursuant to the Attorney General’s guidance, the Defense of Marriage Act remains in effect and the Department of Homeland Security will continue to enforce it unless and until Congress repeals it, or there a final judicial determination that it is unconstitutional.”
Amid calls to hold the marriage-based green cards in abeyance, the Obama administration has taken action to address the issue. Just last month, the Department of Homeland Security issued guidance stipulating immigration officers should consider “long-term, same-sex partners” as families when considering whether to exercise prosecutorial discretion in the potential deportation of an undocumented immigrant.
NOTE: This posting has been updated from its initial posting to reflect the comment from Steve Ralls.
National
Baldwin, Pocan named on alleged Minn. shooter’s target lists
Gunman killed state lawmaker, husband on Saturday

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, Democrats of Wisconsin, were named on lists of targets belonging to the man suspected of killing Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband and of injuring Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife.
The Hoffmans sustained multiple gunshot wounds and are reportedly in serious but stable condition.
Vance Boelter, the suspect, was apprehended on Sunday in connection with the shootings, which occurred on Saturday. He faces federal murder and stalking charges as well as state-level murder and attempted murder charges.
“Senator Baldwin was informed by law enforcement that she was included on the alleged shooter’s list of names,” Baldwin’s Communications Director Eli Rosen told Channel3000.com. “She is grateful for law enforcement’s swift action to keep the community safe and remains focused on the things that matter most here: honoring the legacy and life of Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, praying for the other victims who are fighting for their lives, and condemning this abhorrent, senseless political violence.”
“I recently heard that my name was in one of the Minnesota shooting suspect’s notebooks and I’m appreciative that law enforcement apprehended the suspect,” Pocan said in a statement to Channel3000.com. “I will not back down in the face of terror, however, we as elected officials, must do better to lower the temperature. That said, my schedule remains unchanged.”
The news outlet reported on Monday that Baldwin’s name appeared on a list of 70 targets, while Pocan’s name was found on additional documents. The senator and congressman are both openly LGBTQ.
Democratic U.S. Reps. Greg Landsman (Ohio), Hillary Schotlen (Mich.), Veronica Escobar (Texas), and Joaquin Castro (Texas) also confirmed that their names appeared in notebooks recovered from Boelter’s vehicle.
Other Democrats who were reportedly targeted but whose offices have not yet provided confirmation as of Tuesday afternoon include LGBTQ congresswoman Angie Craig, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, and Attorney General Keith Ellison, all from Minnesota, along with U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski of Illinois, and U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri.
Walz called the shootings a “politically motivated assassination.”
Federal Government
Trump anti-trans EO used to deny health care to Democrats, unmarried vets
Veterans warn impacts will be felt disproportionately by women and LGBTQ people.

New rules would allow doctors at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to deny care to unmarried veterans and Democrats at hospitals across the country, pursuant to President Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”
According to the Guardian, which was first to report the hospital guidelines on Monday, they apply also to psychologists, dentists, and other providers — allowing for individual staff to refuse care for veterans on the basis of characteristics not covered under federal law, which proscribes discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, and sex.
Doctors can also be barred from working on VA hospitals based on their marital status, political party affiliation or union activity, per documents reviewed by the Guardian. The agency confirmed changes to the rules came in response to Trump’s executive order.
Specifically, per the paper:
Until the recent changes, VA hospitals’ bylaws said that medical staff could not discriminate against patients “on the basis of race, age, color, sex, religion, national origin, politics, marital status or disability in any employment matter”. Now, several of those items — including “national origin,” “politics” and “marital status” — have been removed from that list.
Similarly, the bylaw on “decisions regarding medical staff membership” no longer forbids VA hospitals from discriminating against candidates for staff positions based on national origin, sexual orientation, marital status, membership in a labor organization or “lawful political party affiliation.”
Experts warn that changes to the guidelines may lead to situations where, for example, doctors may question patients about whether they attended a rally for a political candidate or in support of gay rights, potentially denying care on those bases or because of the reasons given for seeking care, such as cases where the patient may report a rape or sexual assault.
Veterans warn impacts will be felt disproportionately by women and LGBTQ people.
National
New LGBTQ+ Archive to save scrubbed federal resources
Trump’s anti-DEI crusade seeks to erase entire communities

Generally, when someone says, “The internet is forever,” it is not a positive statement.
But for Shae Gardner, policy director at LGBT Tech, it has become a lifeline as she and her team have spent the last couple of months tracking down documents removed from government websites.
After a series of anti-DEI and LGBTQ executive orders, thousands of pages across the federal government have been removed or altered—with LGBTQ topics taking a big hit.
The LGBTQ+ Archive, launched by LGBT Tech last month, aims to restore lost resources about the LGBTQ community into a centralized hub. They have tracked down approximately 1,000 documents—all available as downloadable PDFs and sorted by agency—but know that more are missing. Users can submit missing documents or requests for missing documents.
Archived resources range from the 2023 Equity Action Plans mandated under Biden to HIV resource sheets.
Sid Gazula, LGBT Tech’s Google Policy Fellow said reviewing the documents scrubbed from the Department of Health and Human Services was striking. “You have these important documents related to people’s health. Health isn’t subjective,” he said, “The fact that an executive order could take away all this information was very eye-opening.”
For Gazula it made an already urgent project more urgent. “We, as a community, need access to these resources,” he said, “The archive presents a mechanism to get that access out there.”
The LGBT community has a long history of engaging in archival work, explained K.J. Rawson, professor at Northeastern University and director of the Digital Transgender Archive, in an email. He described archives as “key avenues for preserving and making accessible queer and trans history.”
Since mainstream archives often erase or misrepresent the LGBTQ community, Rawson pointed out that LGBTQ archives “fight against this trend and wrest control back into LGBTQ+ hands,” citing Cait McKinney’s phrase “information activism.”
Gardner feels appreciative of the history of LGBTQ preservation, which guided their work: “I want to make it abundantly clear that we are not the first or only organization doing this sort of preservation work.” She also mentions the Internet Archive, a non-profit library of web pages, which was invaluable during their research.
When the Blade asked about the LGBT Archive, Rawson described it as “crucial!” He elaborated that, “the overt erasure of LGBTQ+ people––but especially trans people––from federal websites has been a hostile move that’s one part of larger efforts to strip us of our humanity and our history.”
Beyond creating a record for the future, the archive is also useful in fighting for LGBTQ representation today. Gardner explained that numerous journalists and advocacy groups have already been using it. Gazula, who is a student, shared that some of their professors said it was an important resource for academic work.
To access it, users have to create an account. Gardner said this is not for marketing. Instead, they want to “put a stop gap between us and malicious actors and attacks on the site” and have a basic understanding of who is using the site. She assures users that the data is backed up on servers globally, but encourages folks to download freely from the archive.
“We decided that we wanted every document and resource on it to be a PDF that they would be able to save it themselves,” said Gardner, “This is not only meant to be very user-friendly, but is also meant to help with those resources being dispersed and being kept.”
“It is the history of our community,” Gardner continued, “we deserve to have continued access to it.”