LGBT Rights Are Immigrant Rights

by Dave Bennion · 2009-08-11 13:18:00 -0700
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I am blogging from a Motel 6 outside of Pittsburgh tonight in advance of the New Organizing Institute's pre-Netroots Nation blogger summit tomorrow on online advocacy and the intersection of immigration/LGBT issues.  It looks to be a good group of bloggers and activists in attendance.

As I have learned through my immigration legal work over the past few years, LGBT immigrants tend to fall through the cracks of the immigration system much more frequently than hetero immigrants.  Many of the available immigration remedies and defenses against deportation are predicated on traditional hetero nuclear family relationships.  Under the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the federal government is bound by law not to recognize gay families for the purpose of legal obligations or benefits, and immigration is almost entirely a federal body of law.  LGBT asylum law has come a long way since the '90s, but still leaves too many in the shadows.  A while back, I had the unpleasant experience of advising a gay would-be asylum seeker that his chances of experiencing the thing he feared most--deportation to his homophobic home country--would actually significantly increase if he applied for asylum.

The first U.S. immigration case I ever worked on was a pro bono asylum case during my first year as an associate attorney at a corporate firm in New York.  The basis for the claim was my client's transgender identity.  Her predicament opened my eyes to the struggles undocumented immigrants face, but also to the harassment and persecution that trans people endure right here in the States.  At one point in the course of representing her, I had my first "Oh my god, I can't believe I am in the United States" moment that every nonprofit immigration attorney has experienced.  I was horrified.

Getting recognized legal status didn't solve my client's problems in getting decent health care, a place to live free from harassment, an employer that would hire her, or law enforcement that offered her protection.  The immigration judge believed my client would be attacked or killed in her home country on the basis of her gender and sexual orientation--I firmly believed it as well.  But what was not discussed at any hearing or in discussions with opposing counsel was the risk of serious injury or death that trans people face in the U.S. as victims of hate crimes.

I hope tomorrow's NOI meeting advances the conversation about LGBT rights and immigrant rights, two areas in which the U.S. falls far short of its stated ideals.

(I'll take this opportunity to make a pitch for readers to support the excellent work Immigration Equality continues to do on LGBT immigrants' rights.  Thanks to their efforts, the HIV travel/immigration ban is entering its final days.)

[Image: murder victim Angie Zapata]

Dave Bennion
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