Usually refers to couples or families with members who have different immigration status. A mixed-status family, for example, might have a father who is an undocumented immigrant, a mother who is a legal resident and a child who was born in the United States and is a citizen.
Mixed-status relationship and mixed-status couple are also sometimes used by health workers to describe a sexual relationship in which one partner is HIV-positive and the other is HIV-negative, according to AIDS.gov, a website managed by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
