This posting on the Putney Friends Meeting page is welcome news to our friends Francis and Takako and all of us at Putney Friends Meeting. Fair is fair. Equality is not sameness, it is equality of respect. One more small step towards marriage equality in the USA.
Leahy, Sanders And Welch Announce Lifting Of The Threat Of Deportation That Hovered Over Frances and Takako!
Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) recently announced a breakthrough that will bring certainty and stability for now to the legal status of a Japanese-born woman, Takako Ueda, who is married under Vermont law to an American citizen, Frances Herbert. The couple live in Dummerston, Vt and attend Putney Friends Meeting.
The bi-national same-sex couple has been together for more than a decade and were legally married in Vermont last year, but U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had denied the Japanese-born Ms. Ueda a spousal permanent resident card, also known as a green card. Under the federal Defense of Marriage Act, their marriage is not recognized at the federal level.
Leahy, Sanders and Welch announced that the citizenship agency used its discretion to grant “deferred action”…
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Roger Vincent Jasaitis 
That’s wonderful news! I remember sending a letter or petition online for this couple, and it’s great to know they will not be separated.
Yes Ginger, your support helped them in their pursuit of equality.
So happy for all involved. Celebrating with fond memories of my/our own Vermont wedding.
Thank you.
Ernest Gonzalez-Marshall.
wow, we get to put faces to the names! i am so happy for their great news. someday we will all look back at this conversation of marriage and see it for plain old fashioned discrimination.
Equality wins, one human relationship at a time.