ABSTRACT
The terms "marriage" and "spouse" are scattered liberally throughout the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA"), determining eligibility for everything from family-based immigrant visas to waivers of deportability and bars on admission. In fact, the vast majority of US immigration is based on such close family relationships. This is no accident. Family unification has been the bedrock principle of US immigration policy and law for a very long time. The rationale was superseded in 1990, when Congress repealed the "sexual deviant" ground of inadmissibility. Another rationale actually favors same- sex spouses now that immigration officials have begun recognizing their marriages. In the meantime, Windsor will allow many families to immigrate together to the United States based on stepparent-stepchild relationships while awaiting clarification of the citizenship issue. Immigration officials might at least extend spousal recognition to legally registered couples in jurisdictions that define partners in civil unions as "spouses".
