Florida Senator Marco Rubio on Tuesday
reiterated that including gay and lesbian couples in immigration
reform would doom the current effort to failure.
Rubio made his remarks shortly after
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy submitted two
amendments to proposed immigration reform legislation by the
so-called “gang of eight” senators.
“For immigration reform to be truly
comprehensive, it must include protections for all families,”
Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, said in a statement. “We must end
the discrimination that gay and lesbian families face in our
immigration law.”
One amendment was expected; the second
had gay rights groups cheering.
Under the current law, a gay American
citizen cannot sponsor an immigrant spouse for citizenship due to the
Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which prevents the federal government
from recognizing such marriages. Leahy's expected amendment would
allow a gay U.S. citizen the ability to seek a visa for a spouse by
creating a new category of “permanent partners.”
The second amendment seeks to create an
exception to DOMA under immigration law by defining a person to be a
married spouse if the marriage “is valid in the state in which the
marriage was entered into” or, if “entered into outside of any
state,” was valid in the state where entered into.
Rubio said in a statement that
including gay couples in the measure “will ensure that it fails.”
Fred Sainz, vice president of
communications for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), told
BuzzFeed that the added amendment was “brilliant.”
“This is basically meant to ferret
out the Republicans,” Sainz said. “If you believe in a
federalism concept, then I love this because it really narrows, and
makes more circumspect, the objections. It's hard to object to
marriage, if they're already married. If you're not creating a whole
other category of 'permanent partners,' then the objection, on their
part, is much more difficult. I think it's a game-changer.”
President Barack Obama earlier said
that he supports gay-inclusive language in the bill, but would not
rule out signing an immigration bill in which the provision is not
included.
(Related: Obama
supports move to include gays in immigration bill.)