Judge Grants Birthright U.S. Citizenship to Son of Binational Gay Couple

A California judge granted U.S. citizen to the twin son of a binational gay married couple who didn’t share a blood relationship with his American father, reported the Los Angeles Times.

Two-year old Ethan Dvash-Banks was originally denied U.S. citizenship because he only shared DNA with his father Elad, who is an Israeli citizen, and not his American father Andrew, who Ethan’s twin brother Aiden is biologically related to.

However, Los Angeles federal Judge John F. Walter ruled that U.S. law doesn’t require a child to show a biological relationship with both their parents if the parents were married at the child’s birth – which Elad and Andrew were.

The couple filed the suit after receiving a letter from the State Department saying Aidan’s application for citizenship had been accepted but Ethan’s hadn’t. The suit was filed by Immigration Equality, an LGBTQ immigration rights group, and claimed the State Department was discriminating against same-sex couples who are citizens of different countries.

“This is a huge victory for Ethan Dvash-Banks and his family,” said the executive director of Immigration Equality, Aaron C. Morris. “They wanted their twin boys in every way to be treated exactly the same. It really hurt them to have one child get the remarkable privilege of U.S. citizenship at birth and the other to be required to petition as an immigrant.”

While the judge didn’t weigh in on the constitutionality of the State Department’s policy to limit citizenship to biological relation, Morris said his decision could be “a strong indication that the State Department policy is wrong and should be revamped.”

“If they don’t,” he continued, “we will simply have to sue again in other districts in other circuits until they get it right.”