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Some Immigrants Denied Marriage Licenses
"There's a fundamental U.S. constitutional right to marry," said Charles Baesler, an immigration lawyer in Kentucky and chairman of the American Immigration Lawyers Association's Southeast chapter.
A federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled last month that a county official could not require a man to prove he was legally in the country before issuing a marriage license to him and his American fiancee.
  Jonadad Luque and his daughter, Jarlin, 5, are shown at their home in Nashville, Tenn., Tuesday, July 10, 2007. Luque is a Honduran immigrant legally in the U.S. under temporary protective status. He and his girlfriend have two children and want to get married, but the county clerk in Nashville would not give them a license because his girlfriend is in the country illegally and doesn't have a Social Security number. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey) (Mark Humphrey - AP) Life Along 'La Linea' The U.S.-Mexico border is at the forefront of a growing debate over U.S. immigration and border security reform. |
The Rev. Joseph Breen of Nashville's St. Edward Catholic Church, which has a large Hispanic congregation, said he became concerned about the number of couples in his parish, some with children, who had been unable to marry legally.
So the church drove about 20 couples across the state line to Kentucky for licenses and a civil wedding ceremony before bringing them back to Nashville for a church wedding.
"We call ourselves a Christian country, but you've got to go to Georgia or Kentucky in order to get married," Breen said. "We're supposed to be pro-family."
The Rev. Neil Pezzulo, a Roman Catholic priest in rural Arkansas' Scott County, said immigrant couples keep coming in with marriage licenses issued in a neighboring county with a more liberal policy.
Scott County Clerk Sandy Staggs said state law requires a Social Security number, but for people who don't have one, her office also accepts a birth certificate, translated into English, and a photo ID.
As for how the policy could differ from one county to the next, Pezzulo said: "My suspicion is it has to do more with religious and political agendas than an understanding of the law."
