ABOUT TIME

Trump Admin Cedes Victory to Same-Sex Couple After Daily Beast Report

The government withdrew its appeal in an ongoing legal battle over the citizenship of a same-sex couple’s child after The Daily Beast brought the issue to light.

The U.S. State Department has backed down in two legal fights over granting citizenship to the children of same-sex couples born abroad after The Daily Beast brought the issue to light last fall. The State Department on Monday withdrew its appeal in the case concerning the daughter of Roee and Adiel Kiviti, according to nonprofit legal group Lambda Legal and Immigration Equality. As The Daily Beast reported at the time, the two married American fathers sued last year to have their daughter Kessem’s U.S. citizenship validated after the State Department initially deemed her birth in Canada to be “out of wedlock” and thus invalid. They won their case in June but the Trump administration had appealed the ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Separately, the State Department also opted not to appeal in the case of Derek Mize and Jonathan Gregg, a same-sex American couple that filed a discrimination suit last year after their daughter, who was born abroad with a surrogate, was denied citizenship. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia ruled in favor of the couple in August.