One boy was regarded as a US citizen, while the other wasn’t
A New York-headquartered firm known for its business and commercial law practices successfully acted in a citizenship case that’s making headlines in the US.
On 21 February, US District Judge John Walter of Los Angeles ruled in a case that involved a same-sex married couple’s twins, who were initially deemed of different nationalities by the United States Department of State.
The ruling stems from lawsuits filed by Sullivan & Cromwell and Immigration Equality on January 2018 on behalf of married same-sex couples and their children. Two of those plaintiffs, Andrew Dvash-Banks and Elad Dvash-Banks, had twin sons, Aiden and Ethan, through surrogacy in Canada.
Andrew, a US citizen, and Elad, an Israeli citizen, sought the recognition of the twins’ US citizenship and were required by the State Department to submit DNA tests and documentation of their biological relationship to the twins.
The State Department reasoned that since Aiden was conceived with the genetic material of Andrew and Ethan with the genetic material of Elad, Aiden was a US citizen while Ethan wasn’t. Ethan had to enter the US on a tourist visa.
Walter ruled that a child such as Ethan, who is born to a married US-citizen parent, is entitled to citizenship by birthright.
“For two years, this is something that weighed on us every single day. Not knowing whether Ethan would be allowed to stay in the US is something we went to bed with every night. Now, our family is whole and safe,” Andrew said.
