Pinay couple get US Immigration reprieve

Mercado and Tan have been together for 23 years and have two 12-year-old twin sons. Yet their happy life as a couple recently came under a black cloud when Tan was almost deported back to the Philippines.

Tan was supposed to be deported on May 10 after a 2005 asylum request was denied. U.S. Immigration had apparently decided that Tan cannot receive residency under the current law because her partner, Mercado, is also female.

Mercado, a U.S. resident, told this reporter during a Filipino-American event in San Francisco Sunday night that she and Tan had filed for domestic partnership in 1991 and tied the knot in 2004. Their wedding was officiated in San Francisco.

This apparently was not enough for U.S. Immigration, which turned down her asylum bid. Tan had no idea that her asylum petition had been denied until federal agents took her away in handcuffs at the end of January, according to Mercado.

Thankfully, her case came to the attention of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who introduced a private bill for Tan that would allow her to stay in the States for two years while Congress processes her case. In introducing the bill, Feinstein said that without it, “this family will be separated, or they will be relocated to a Third [World] country where Ms. Tan’s safety and her children’s well-being may be at risk.”

Tan, 43, arrived in California in 1989 on a visitor’s visa. Earlier reports said she applied for asylum in 1995 because she was afraid of a cousin back in the Philippines who killed her mother and sister and critically wounded her when she was a teenager.

“Right now we’re happy and pleased with the outcome because she [Tan] can stay with us; and we don’t have to be apart,” said Mercado. She added that Tan’s ordeal has strengthened their faith in God.

Mercado, 48, admitted that they could find themselves in the same situation again if the bill is allowed to expire at the end of congressional session in January 2011.

Currently, gay rights activists in the U.S. are using the couple’s case to push for passage of a long-stalled immigration reform bill here in the U.S. known as the Uniting American Families Act that would provide gay Americans the right to sponsor foreign-born partners for residency.

Tan recalled her ordeal. “[The support of other gay couples] was very touching during those trying moments. We don’t know what to think but our main purpose was just for me to stay here. We are a very close knit family.”

Mercado said she and Tan are now focused on the passage of the bill and UAFA. “Our main purpose now is to pass UAFA because this will help a lot of people since there are over 36,000 bi-national couples [that are in the same boat],” she said.

Tan said, “There’s hope and there’s UAFA that we hope will eventually pass.”

Before their case came to light, the couple said they didn’t realize that there are other lesbian and gay couples who are facing immigration challenges.

Tan said she and Mercado are worried about their twins who were born in the U.S. and are American citizens.

Tan carried the twins through in vitro fertilization using Mercado’s egg and a sperm donor.