Partner Swap
Gay men and lesbians marry each other to get around immigration discrimination.
Four years ago, Jerry*, a man from Queens, fell in love with Jay Lee, a Korean man who had come to the U.S. to earn his college degree. When Lee’s student visa was about to expire, Jerry and Lee wanted to stay together. Jerry was willing to do whatever it took for Lee to legally stay in the United States. Jerry decided to marry, which allowed his foreign-born spouse to obtain a permanent residency. But, it was not his lover he married, but a lesbian from Colombia, who also needed her visa extension.
“If I married Jay, he couldn’t get a green card [United States Permanent Resident Card],” Jerry, 34, said. “It was a part of deal. My partner married a lesbian who has American citizenship and I got married to her partner.”
In the United States, the Defense of Marriage Act prohibits the federal government from recognizing same sex marriages, which means gays cannot help their foreign-born partner obtain legal status through marriage. Because of this, same-sex couples in which one partner is a U.S. citizen and the other a foreign national face immigration issues, as they have to fight to be with the one they love. There are more than 40,000 such couples in the U.S., according to the 2000 U.S. census.
There are options for these couples, such as becoming a student or being sponsored by employers, but these are not easily accomplished, either.
“The most common problem they have is being able to find work,” said Rodrigo Martinez, the Media and Outreach Coordinator at Immigration Equality which fights against the negative impacts of the U.S immigration law on same sex couples. “Many couples become students by enrolling in schools, which are very expensive and do not permit their work. The American partner generally needs to provide for both of them.”
Martinez said that these couples are often distraught and afraid, either because they are already here illegally or their visas are about to expire.
“It is unfortunate. These problems could be avoided if the Uniting American Families Act, a bill we helped to introduce in Congress, would change the existing Immigration Act by substituting ‘permanent partner’ with ’spouse’ in the bill’s language,” Martinez added.
The situation was no different for Jerry and Lee. The marriage exchange was an attractive deal to them, as it is to other couples who are forced to extreme circumstances in order to remain together.
“By getting married, it was a definite 100% done deal, so that I didn’t have to worry about it,” Jerry said.
But marrying under false pretense may incur severe penalties which includes fines of up to $280,000 and up to five years in a federal prison. Despite the harsh penalties, Jerry decided to take the risk.
“We went to our lawyers and we did a lot of studying,” Jerry said, noting that he still has his documented wife’s clothes and pictures at his home as evidence of their marriage. “They asked my wife what color underwear I put on that morning and what was the color of the sink. We got that one wrong. She said white and I said silver.”
After their marriage, Lee could get his green card in a few days. He did not have to expand his education to sustain a student visa or worry about being hired to obtain a working visa. Soon, he got a job as an administrative assistant at the college he graduated from.
“He became less grouchy around me and nicer after that,” Jerry said.
But their relationship did not last more than three years, while the lesbian couple they married is still together in the Bronx. Jerry rarely has contact with his wife, but does not have any plans to divorce yet.
After breaking up with Lee, Jerry went to South Korea to teach English this past summer, but his newly documented ex-boyfriend stayed in the U.S. While in South Korea, Jerry met a nice guy with whom he still keeps in touch.
“I like him,” Jerry said with smile. “But I don’t know the possibility of getting together. Maybe this time I would be willing to relocate to South Korea.”
* All names marked with the asterisk have been changed to protect the identities of the individuals.