Washington, DC-based gay newspaper Metro Weekly reported on Feb 14:
UPDATE @ 5:50 PM: Anton Tanumihardja will not be deported today.
According to Lavi Soloway, the order from the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement reads: "Therefore ICE will extend the Stay ... until a decision is made by the [Board of Immigration Appeals] on his Motion to Reopen."]
At 1 p.m. today, Feb. 14, Anton Tanumihardja is scheduled to board a flight to Indonesia.
The flight will take the native of Indonesia out of the United States and place a 10-year bar on any attempt for him to return to this country to make it his home. It also, his lawyer argues in a request currently before the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) to reopen his deportation case, would mean that Tanumihardja "would face a constant threat of violence" if returned to Indonesia because he is gay.
He also, immigration reform advocate Lavi Soloway told Metro Weekly, will be forced to leave his partner, Brian Andersen, who he met in recent years. Unlike a heterosexual couple, Tanumihardja's partner cannot sponsor him for immigration purposes. Legislation to address that, the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA) has attracted broad support and was included in the framework for comprehensive immigration reform proposed by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) in 2010.
"What we are now advocating is that that discretion should be applied to bi-national couples," Soloway said on Feb. 13. "We're not asking for the administration to suspend the enforcement of immigration law. We're simply asking for them to delay the prosecution of those cases – to put them on hold, to literally press a 'pause' button – because there is a legislative fix in the works that the administration supports."
Read the full article in Metro Weekly.