Equal Dignity

"No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right."

- Anthony Kennedy
   Majority Opinion
   Obergefell v. Hodges
   The Supreme Court of the United States

Lizzie B and Lady Liberty

The view from the top of One World Trade Center. (Photo by Mark Uhlemann.)

One World Trade Center, which opened in October 2014, is the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, and on top of this building is the recently opened One World Observatory™, which provides unique and amazing panoramic views of New York City and surrounding waters and areas. Yesterday Lizzie B and her fiancé took one of the sky pod elevators to the 102nd floor in under sixty seconds. They admired the incredible views, and for a few seconds, Lizzie B locked eyes with Lady Liberty. It was a special moment.

Harper's: "Displaced in the D.R.: A Country Strips 210,000 of Citizenship"

Photo by Daniel Loncarevic/iStock/ Getty Images

After stripping citizenship from over two hundred thousand Dominicans, many of Haitian descent, the Dominican Republic has threatened mass deportation for those who do not register with the government to obtain legal status. The threats of deportation come after years of anti-Haitian discrimination and a documented history of violence against Haitian immigrants culminating in 2013 when the Dominican Constitutional Tribunal, the nation's highest court, revoked citizenship retroactively to 1929 for all Dominicans with undocumented foreign parents even if they had been born in the Dominican Republic. The ruling, which became known as "the Sentence," effectively rendered 210,000 Dominicans stateless, most of whom are of Haitian descent. Juliana Deguis Pierre, who was one of the plaintiffs in the suit against the government that in the end backfired and led to her loss of citizenship, said the Sentence "paralyzed her life," as it meant she could not legally work, marry, open a bank account, get a driver’s license, vote, or register for high school or university. "I'm nobody in my own country," she told Harper's at the time.

In response to severe international criticism of the Sentence—including many who compared it to Hitler's stripping citizenship from Jews in Germany in the 1930s—the Dominican government issued a presidential decree for a "regularization" plan for undocumented immigrants. The plan allowed for anyone who immigrated to the Dominican Republic before October 2011 to apply for regular migratory status, and afterwards citizenship. While the plan did provide options for undocumented Dominicans to avoid deportation, critics of the plan noted the difficult obstacles in applying, including burdensome documentation requirements and the need to apply in-person at designated offices far from most Haitian communities. Those who did not apply by June 2015 would be deported.

Now that the June deadline has passed, with hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants still reportedly unregistered, it remains unclear if mass deportations will take place. The Dominican government has not stated if it will extend the deadline for registration, has repeatedly denied any plans for mass deportations, and has stated that as a sovereign nation it has the right to enact and enforce its own immigration policies as it sees fit.

In the meantime, many continue to speak out against the Dominican government's deportation plans. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke this past Sunday from Washington Heights, the Manhattan neighborhood with a large Dominican population. "It is clearly an illegal act," Mayor de Blasio said. "It is an immoral act. It is a racist act by the Dominican government. And it’s happening because these people are black. And it cannot be accepted."

Voices of Color

"The times now seem to be evolving with voices of color. All voices are important, and yet it seems that people of color have a lot to say, particularly if you look through the poetry of young people — a lot of questions and a lot of concerns about immigration and security issues, you name it, big questions. All this is swirling in the air.”

- Juan Felipe Herrera, the first Latino
 poet laureate of the United States  
 The Washington Post

Wine Friday

Photo by Carolyn Szaiff.

After a long week of filing cases and doing our best to deal with the visa issuance delays at US Embassies/Consulates wordwide, we were able to relax a bit with a colorful array of wines: a Sauvignon blanc, a classic rosé, a rosé cider (oooh, exciting), and a Tempranillo. Also we had some cheesy bread—because it's so good.

New York Times: "With Move Across London, U.S. Embassy Can’t Please Everyone"

The new US Embassy in London under construction. (Photo by US Embassy London used under Creative Commons.)

The US Embassy in London is moving locations, and not everyone is happy about it. After years of criticism and protests by local residents against the current Embassy building in Grosvenor Square because of safety and security concerns—the protests included a hunger strike by a countess—the US Embassy is moving from its Modernist concrete building in beautiful, historic, and exclusive Mayfair, where the Embassy has been based since 1960, to a more protected and environmentally responsible building in the gritty district of Nine Elms on the South Bank of the Thames. While the move planned for 2017 is welcomed by local Mayfair residents who for years have feared terrorist attacks, the new location also has its own critics.

The new building was designed by Philadelphia firm KieranTimberlake to reflect "the core values of democracy—transparency, openness, and equality" and also to be "welcoming, secure, and highly sustainable." The design, however, has been called "boring," a "corporate office block," and "the Ice Cube." Former Guardian architecture critic Jonathan Glancey said that the proposed building is "remote and superficially transparent" and that it reflects "what we can divine of the US political process. Nominally open to all and yet, in practice, tightly controlled[.]"

Peter Rees, the City of London’s former head of planning, wrote in an email to the New York Times: “It seems sad that the U.S. Embassy is relocating from a beautiful historic square in Mayfair to a fortified bunker in former railyards on the far side of the river...It’s like moving from New York’s Upper East Side to New Jersey.”

Ambassador Robert Tuttle, who led the search for a new site, said on the London Embassy website: “We looked at all our options, including renovation of our current building on Grosvenor Square. In the end, we realized that the goal of a modern, secure and environmentally sustainable Embassy could best be met by constructing a new facility.”

As the New York Times said when the original building design was chosen:

The project as a whole...is a fascinating study in how architecture can be used as a form of camouflage. The building is set in a spiraling pattern of two small meadows and a pond that have as much to do with defensive fortification as with pastoral serenity: an eye-opening expression of the irresolvable tensions involved in trying to design an emblem of American values when you know it may become the next terrorist target.

No word if Gould Pharmacy, which rents lockers for applicants who cannot bring their large electronic items into the Embassy, will also open a new location. It might be finally time to leave those large electronics at home.

Delays in Visa and Passport Issuance at US Embassies/Consulates Caused by Technical Problems

The Department of State (DOS) is currently experiencing technical problems with their overseas passport and visa systems. This appears to be a worldwide situation and not specific to any particular country, citizenship document, or visa category. Those affected by this technical problem should check the DOS website for any updates. Moreover, DOS has not provided a time frame for the resolution.

Nonimmigrant Visa Applicants
The systems in place to perform background security checks on each visa applicant are experiencing technical difficulties. US Embassies/Consulates are not able to bypass these security checks. As a result, nonimmigrant visa applicants filing nonimmigrant visa application Form DS-160 on or after June 9, 2015 will not be able to move forward with their visa application process until the technical issues are resolved. While DOS sincerely regrets these delays, they will only entertain expedite requests for “urgent humanitarian need.” In addition, we expect that even once the situation is resolved, we will see delays while the US Embassies/Consulates clear their backlogs.

Immigrant Visa Applicants
Some immigrant visa applicants continue to experience technical difficulties accessing Form DS-260. The DOS suggests that these issues are intermittent and that applicants return to the application website periodically to try to complete Form DS-260.

Passport Applicants
The technical difficulties are also causing delays in the printing of US passports that were approved at overseas passport facilities. Applications accepted by the Passport Unit at an Embassy abroad on or after May 26, 2015 are affected by this delay. Applicants who requested a US passport during this time frame and who have travel plans within the next ten business days should consider requesting an emergency passport at the US Embassy at which they originally applied.

UPDATE (June 18, 2015): The State Department reports that the Bureau of Consular Affairs continues to address the global technical problems with their visa systems. While there is no indication that the outage was related to a cyber security issue, the system is not expected to be online before next week at the earliest. Although passports are still being processed, visa applicants should expect lengthy delays and also that their appointments may be rescheduled. US Embassies/Consulate are prioritizing urgent medical and other humanitarian cases as well as H-2A agricultural workers. We will provide any additional updates as we receive them.

UPDATE (June 23, 2015): The State Department reports that as of yesterday twenty-two consular posts have been reconnected to their systems (which represents about half of the global nonimmigrant visa volume), and they are continuing to restore systems to full functionality. Though some progress has been made, biometric data processing has not been fully restored. As promised, the State Department has prioritized temporary and seasonal workers with nearly 1,250 visas issued in Mexico, and they have issued more than 3,000 visas globally for urgent and humanitarian travel. There is a large backlog of cases to clear, but many posts are conducting visa interviews and are able to print some visas and also have rescheduled visa appointments. Domestic passport operations are functioning albeit with some processing delays and the State Department continues to issue routine and expedited passports to US citizens for all overseas travel needs.

UPDATE (June 24, 2015): The State Department reports that thirty-nine consular posts, which represents more than two-thirds of their normal capacity, are now online and issuing visas.  Moreover, the State Department anticipates that the system will be fully reconnected this week, and personnel will work over the weekend to clear the backlog.

The Other Side

"For the past five months, she had been documenting the gradual unraveling of their lives, in moments both mundane and monumental: the first visit to their home by immigration officers, the delivery of Zunaid’s deportation orders, his final trips to eat American ice cream and watch American basketball. Now only four days remained before he would be sent off to Bangladesh, a deportation that would upend not just one life but two. Zunaid would be forcibly separated from the United States after 20 years; his wife, an American citizen, would be forcibly separated from her husband."

- "The Other Side of Deportation: An American
Struggles to Prepare for Life without Husband"
The Washington Post