<P> On April 2, 2012, five bi-national same - sex couples represented by Immigration Equality and Paul, Weiss filed a lawsuit, Blesch v. Holder, in the District Court for the Eastern District of New York, claiming that Section 3 of DOMA violated their equal protection rights by denying the U.S. citizen in the relationship the same rights in the green card application process granted a U.S. citizen who is in a relationship of partners of the opposite sex . On July 25, Chief Judge Carol Bagley Amon stayed the case pending the resolution of Windsor by the Second Circuit . </P> <P> Immigration rights advocate Lavi Soloway reported on June 19, 2012, that the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) had in four cases responded to green card denials on the part of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) by asking the USCIS to document the marital status of the same - sex couples and determine whether the foreign national would qualify for a green card in the absence of DOMA Section 3 . He said the BIA is "essentially setting the stage for being able to approve the petitions in a post-DOMA universe ." </P> <P> On April 19, 2013, U.S. District Judge Consuelo Marshall ordered that a suit brought in July 2012 by Jane DeLeon, a Philippine citizen, and her spouse, Irma Rodriguez, a U.S. citizen, could proceed as a class action . The plaintiffs, represented by the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, contended that DeLeon was denied a residency waiver because of DOMA Section 3 . </P> <P> On June 28, 2013, the USCIS notified U.S. citizen Julian Marsh that it had approved the green card petition for his Bulgarian husband Traian Popov . Both are residents of Florida . On July 3, the USCIS office in Centennial, Colorado, granted Cathy Davis, a citizen of Ireland, a green card based on her marriage to U.S. citizen Catriona Dowling . </P>

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