Vermont married lesbian couple may be split up by feds

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20111221/NEWS02/111221015/1007/NEWS02/Vermont-married-lesbian-couple-may-split-up-by-feds-

argument for nationwide action...

"Frances Herbert and her wife, Takako Ueda, were looking forward to the New Year's Eve family concert at the Baptist Church in their adopted hometown of Dummerston, the town fireworks on the pond and going home to celebrate the arrival of 2012.

But federal immigration authorities have told Ueda she needs to leave the United States for her native Japan by Dec. 31, a move that would split up a lesbian couple who've been together more than a decade and who married under Vermont law in April.

Herbert, a 51-year-old home care provider, and Ueda, a 56-year-old graphic designer, got letters Dec. 1 from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, telling them that Ueda had to leave the country within 30 days. Ueda's student visa expired in July. The couple had applied for "relative alien" status on the basis that she was the spouse of a U.S. citizen, but the federal agency denied that petition.,,"