The Trump administration this week surrendered in its ongoing effort to block passports from the U.S. citizen children born abroad to two married same-sex couples, Lambda Legal announced. Officials had been despicably challenging federal court decisions that forced the State Department to recognize the U.S. citizenship of the children after initially refusing to issue them passports. But in a victory for the two families, Lambda Legal said on Monday that the administration dropped its appeal.
“Every court to have looked at this issue has concluded that the Department of State cannot refuse to recognize the U.S. citizenship of children born abroad to married same-sex couples,” Lambda Legal senior attorney Omar Gonzalez-Pagan said. “We are gratified that the victories of the Kiviti and Mize-Gregg families are now final and we hope that the Trump administration and the State Department will abide by these courts’ decisions when it encounters other families headed by same-sex couples.”
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The couples had been forced to take the Trump administration to court after the State Department refused to recognize the U.S. citizenship of their children, who were born abroad to surrogates and had their U.S. citizen parents listed on their birth certificates—but weren’t Americans, according to this administration.
“The Immigration and Nationality Act states that children of married U.S. citizens born abroad are U.S. citizens from birth so long as one of their parents has lived in the U.S. at some point,” Lambda Legal said earlier year, “but the State Department routinely denies that right to same-sex couples and their marital children.”
Both couples sued, and won: “In Kiviti v. Pompeo, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland held that Kessem Kiviti, the daughter of same-sex married couple Roee and Adiel Kiviti, had been a U.S. citizen since birth,” Lambda Legal said. “In the lower court’s June 17, 2020 decision, the court held that for the children of married parents, the law required no biological connection to a parent in order for the child to be born a citizen.”
But the Trump administration, allegedly pro-family according to Vice President Mike Pence and pro-LGBTQ according to first daughter Tiffany Trump, appealed the decisions. As I noted earlier this year, Trump’s attacks on the freedoms of LGBTQ+ Americans have in fact been carried out with an intentional cruelty, no matter what Tiff might claim.
“In a similar case, the State Department on Monday elected not to appeal Mize-Gregg v. Pompeo,” Lambda Legal continued. “As such, the August 27, 2020 decision of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia will also stand. In Mize-Gregg, Simone Mize-Gregg, daughter of Derek and Jonathan Mize-Gregg, was declared to be a U.S. citizen from birth after the court found the U.S. Department of State’s policy raised serious constitutional questions.”
It’s a victory for these families, but it’s also a fact that the rights of LBGTQ Americans everywhere are now horrifically at stake, following the rushed and partisan installation of Amy Coney Barrett by Senate Republicans to the Supreme Court. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) said in opposing her nomination that she not once, not twice, but on five separate occasions made paid speeches for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), an anti-LGBTQ organization that has been classified as a hate group for supporting recriminalizing being LGBTQ and defending the horrific state-sanctioned sterilization of transgender people abroad.
“Because ADF frequently litigates Supreme Court cases, taking positions against abortion, LGBTQ rights, and church-state separation, it is likely that if Barrett, who is only 48, is confirmed, she will be hearing arguments from ADF attorneys for many years to come,” Rolling Stone reported. It’ll take action from a new Congress to ensure the rights of LGBTQ Americans, as well as expansion of the courts, which at least for now have protected these two families.
“We are very relieved, on behalf of our daughter, on behalf of our family, and on behalf of LGBT families across this great country of ours,” Roee Kiviti said. “The law was always clear. We knew it, the courts knew it, and now the State Department knows it, too.” His husband Adiel added: “This was never just about us. It was always about standing up for what’s right. We are grateful to those who did it before us, and we are humbled to be a part of the ongoing struggle for justice.”