NJ Binational Couple Separated Days Before Christmas

Posted on 12/22/2010 @ 06:05 PM

This week's Gay City News includes a report, by editor Paul Schindler, about Richard Dennis and Jair Izquierdo (pictured), a binational family who have been separated just days before the Christmas holiday.

Jair, who is Peruvian, was the target of an ICE sting operation in October of this year. After learning that Jair was working as a cosmetician, ICE officers made an "appointment" with him. When they arrived, Jair was placed in detention instead. Last Friday, despite an appeal on Jair's behalf by New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, Jair was removed from the United States and returned to Peru . . . a country rife with homophobia.

Richard and Jair, and their private attorney, turned to Immigration Equality's legal team for help. Our attorneys are assisting the couple in pursuing every legal avenue possible to reunite them in the United States.

"With the assistance of Immigration Equality," Schindler reports, "O’Dwyer will continue his efforts to reopen Izquierdo’s asylum claim before the Board of Immigration Appeals and also pursue another discretionary administrative remedy know as 'humanitarian parole,' which would allow the Peruvian to return to New Jersey, again with the removal order essentially kept in abeyance. Immigration Equality’s Ralls emphasized that such parole is limited to one year, but offers the couple the best short-term solution. He cited the precedent of a Massachusetts couple where the foreign-born partner was granted the humanitarian relief based on the dangers he faced in his home country."

Of course, if Richard and Jair were a straight, married couple, Richard would almost certainly be eligible to sponsor Jair for residency in the United States. Because of discriminatory immigration laws, however, the two are just the latest family to be torn apart.

Instead, Richard will fly to Peru on Friday, in order to spend the holiday with Jair, as his attorney and Immigration Equality's legal team work to reunite them in the U.S.

"When Dennis sees Izquierdo in Peru on Christmas Eve," the paper reports, "it will be the first time they have spent time alone together since October 20. When the couple first spoke after Izquierdo’s arrival in Peru, Dennis told him to remember that they had done everything they could have to date and that 'at least you’re out of detention.'"

"Dennis said he has the support of his family and friends, as well as O’Dwyer and Immigration Equality," the story notes, "but explained he finds himself in an uncomfortable position relying on the efforts of others."

“I almost feel as though it’s me and Jair against the world,” Richard Dennis said.

To read the full story from Gay City News, click here.

Photo courtesy of Gay City News.