NEWSLGBT IMMIGRATION

Just weeks after the Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) started a petition on Change.org that attracted 11,500 supporters, refugee Miguel Caceres has finally been released from prolonged detention. Victory!

On July 12, 2011, a U.S. immigration judge ruled that Miguel Caceres was a refugee and could stay in the United States. He had arrived in the country at the age of 12 fleeing from Honduras, where gang members and his own brother tortured, raped, and beat him because he is gay. It seemed that after so many difficult years, Miguel had finally found freedom.

Except that Immigration and Customs Enforcement refused to release him from detention and he was held in prolonged custody for 57 days. He suffered harassment, abuse, and threats because of his sexual orientation—with no sign that he’d be released—until NIJC convinced more than 11,500 people to sign a petition on Change.org calling on ICE to stop unjustly holding an abused refugee in detention. Now, Miguel has finally been freed from detention!

“I am very happy,” he said. “I didn’t think I was going to be able to get out [of detention]. There’s nothing like freedom. Thank you to everyone who supported me.” Miguel's petition called attention to the fact that ICE had no legal grounds to hold Miguel in detention.

Robert Segwanyi was scheduled for deportation on August 18,  from the United Kingdom's Heathrow airport. The UK was sending Robert back to Uganda, where he was tortured with molten plastic and imprisoned for being gay.

Robert was spared from deportation at the very last minute according to his friend and fellow gay Urandan refugee John Bosco, "[Robert] is back in the detention centre waiting to hear what's next.  He had 5 escorts up to the plane, and as he was about to board the plane the Home Office stopped his deportation.  He is very tired and stressed since he has not been sleeping well.  He is in pain."

John Bosco told me on the phone that Robert has not been eating well and that he was considering suicide, "Since last Friday, when he was given the deportation notice he stopped eating. He threatened to kill himself, because he has had enough,” said Bosco.

More than 3,500 people signed Paul Canning's Change.org petition asking the Home Office to grant Robert Segwanyi asylum in the UK.

I asked John to make sure Robert knew about the thousands of people fighting for his right to live freely as a gay man in the United Kingdom. John said, "I was overwhelmed with the way people helped him through the petition. I think the petition played a big part in this."

Paul Canning was pleased to hear that Robert would be given more time to make his case, but he is not done working to keep Robert safely in the UK. He may still need your help. He wrote to the people who signed his petition on Change.org, "We won because everybody helped including you, but we won a battle we didn’t win the war. Robert Segwanyi isn’t safe yet, so we may need to come back to you.”

In less than 24 hours, more than 800 people have joined a petition campaign started on Change.org calling on the UK's Home Office to halt the deportation of Robert Segwanyi to Uganda, where he was imprisoned and tortured for being gay.

Segwanyi is scheduled for deportation on Thursday, August 18, 2011 on Kenya Airways KQ410 which leaves Heathrow Airport at 8:00 PM.

“Robert has been badly represented, which is largely why his case has hit a crisis point,” said Paul Canning, a blogger at LGBT Asylum News who launched the campaign on Change.org. “The UK authorities are also being completely unreasonable. There is plenty of evidence Robert is gay and -- of course -- that Uganda is unsafe.”

Uganda’s government continues to threaten gays and lesbians with the infamous “kill the gays” bill, which if passed would make being gay or lesbian a crime punishable by death. While the bill died at the end of the last Parliament in May, Uganda’s government appears willing to resurrect the measure sometime in August.

Gays and lesbians are regularly arrested and tortured in Uganda, and according to LGBT Asylum News Segwanyi was arrested in 2010 and tortured for being gay. He eventually escaped to the United Kingdom, where he applied for asylum two weeks after his arrival.

An immigration judge postponed a deportation hearing for Alex Benshimol and Doug Gentry for two years, allowing the legally married gay couple to stay together in the United States.

Benshimol and Gentry were legally married in California, yet they were scheduled to face an immigration hearing on July 13, 2011 because gay and lesbian married couples can not sponsor their foreign born spouses for citizenship like married heterosexual couples can.

Out4Immigration's Change.org petition calling upon elected officials to prevent the forced separation of Doug and Alex, received more than 12,000 signatures.

"We are pleased with the progress that this case demonstrates." said Mickey Lim, Vice President of Out4Immigration. "However there are thousands of same-sex binational couples who are still living with uncertainty because of the Defense of Marriage Act and many more that have already been exiled or separated by this unfair discriminatory law.  We applaud Doug and Alex's courage to put a face on the issue and will continue to work towards securing equal immigration rights for same sex couples!  We look forward to the day when we can welcome all of our friends and families back home!"

After almost 10,000 people signed Michael Erickson's petition on Change.org urging Canadian Immigration officials to allow Alvaro Orozco to stay in Canada, officials granted Alvaro permanent residency based on humanitarian grounds.

Alvaro fled his abusive father in Nicaragua when he was only a teenager. He found a home and supportive community in Toronto, Canada.

On May 13th, Alvaro was arrested and detained by Canadian Immigration. His community quickly organized both online and offline. Nearly 10,000 people signed a petition on Change.org started by Michael Erickson urging Canadian Immigration officials to let Alvaro stay in Canada. Petition signers knew Alvaro faced a death threat from his father for being gay if Alvaro was sent back to Nicaragua.

Organizers also set up a Facebook page with more than 1,000 followers, and a YouTube Channel with videos from the community pleading with immigration to let Alvaro stay.

UPDATE May 31, 2011: Victory! Canadian Immigration announced that Alvaro was granted permanent residency in Canada. He will now be able to live freely in Canada and apply for full Canadian citizenship in a year if he so chooses. http://news.change.org/stories/victory-alvaro-can-stay-in-canada

Alvaro Orozco is an awarding winning gay activist in Toronto, Canada. Last week he was arrested while on his way to dinner with friends.

Alvaro's lawyer tried to get him out on bail, but his bail was denied. Now he is in detention at the Toronto Immigration holding center.

Canada is moving forward with deportation proceedings despite a deadly situation when he arrives back in Nicaragua.

It's been a harrowing ride for gay and lesbian couples that include a partner without U.S. citizenship -- and that's just considering the past two weeks.

Couples like John Beddingfield and Erwin de Leon, a citizen and a Filipino doctoral student, quickly made their 12-year relationship official when Washington, D.C., allowed same-sex couples to marry. But although the Obama Administration has refused to defend laws against same-sex marriage in court, the federal government still doesn't recognize marriages like Beddingfield and de Leon's.

So even though de Leon is married to a US citizen, he isn't eligible to start the process to become a citizen himself. Researchers estimate that around 24,000 couples are in the same situation.

Bi-national same-sex married couples across the country can breathe a huge sigh of relief tonight.

After a long struggle with the law, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has confirmed that it will no longer deny green card applications (I-130s) filed by married same-sex binational couples. They will hold them in abeyance till a final decision can be reached on the legal challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Note that "holding in abeyance" does not mean processing, but it could result in a de facto deferred action.

Chris Geidner from Metro Weekly quotes Christopher Bently, a spokesman for USCIS, confirming the new policy: "USCIS has issued guidance to the field asking that related cases be held in abeyance while awaiting final guidance related to distinct legal issues."

Newlywed Maryland couple Edwin Echegoyen and Rodrigo Martinez can breathe a sigh of relief. Rodrigo has received an official stay of deportation from an immigration judge in Baltimore. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also called off the intended deportation to allow Rodrigo to pursue all legal options, asking the couple to check in once a month.

The continued deportations of LGBT individuals married to U.S. citizens and permanent residents makes little sense, given that even President Obama and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are no longer defending Section 3 of DOMA and regard it as constitutionally suspect. With Congress re-introducing a DOMA repeal bill on Wednesday, there is even more reason to stop these deportations.

Edwin Echegoyen, an American citizen, and Rodrigo Martinez, a citizen of El Salvador, celebrated eight years together by getting married in Washington D.C. a few days ago. Alas, since they are a same-sex couple, Edwin cannot sponsor Rodrigo for citizenship as Rodrigo faces imminent deportation from the country.

Edwin recounts how meeting Rodrigo in 2003 changed his life for the better. At that time, they were not aware that it would be so difficult to get legal status for Rodrigo, who had overstayed a tourist visa. It was only when the Department of Homeland Security ordered Rodrigo to report to authorities that the gravity of the situation sunk in for both of them. For the Maryland couple, deportation is a death sentence when all they want is a normal life together surrounded by family and friends.

Rodrigo and Edwin are not asking for special rights. They want the same rights already afforded to heterosexual U.S. citizens and permanent residents who currently get to sponsor their foreign citizen spouses for citizenship. Advocates argue that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is the only legal obstacle that prevents federal recognition of same-sex marriage and prevents same-sex binational couples from seeking immigration benefits available to heterosexual couples.