Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Louisiana State Flag

Catherine Rampell in the Washington Post reports on an effort to punish immigrants through denying them marriage. In Louisiana, as of this year, any foreign-born person wanting to get married in Louisiana must produce both an unexpired visa (even though a federal court has ruled that marriage licenses cannot be denied based on immigration status), as well as, somewhat inexplicably, a birth certificate. The law has indeed placed marriage off-limits to immigrants in the country unlawfully, as intended. But it also has hurt plenty of legal immigrants. Louisiana is home to thousands of refugees, predominantly Vietnamese and Laotians who received asylum in the 1970s and 1980s after fleeing war and communism in their homelands. Today these Louisianans often have green cards and even U.S. citizenship, but no access to their original birth documents, if such documents even exist.

KJ

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2016/10/what-the-heck-louisiana-isnt-letting-immigrants-get-married.html