What Constitutes Gay Immigration Politics – Notes from a Queer Immigrant Organizer

(Today we've got a great guest post from DreamActivist, courtesy of the great relationships that David Bennion has built over at change.org's Immigration blog.  As you'll read below, passing the Dream Act - which was introduced in both houses of Congress in March 2009 - could have a significant impact on LGBT youth.  Check out the post below.)

The DREAM Act is a bipartisan piece of legislation that would grant conditional residency to undocumented youth brought here before the age of 16 provided they have maintained a continuous presence for five years, earn a high school diploma or GED, commit no crime, and go onto college or join the military. To find out more, please visit DreamActivist and DreamAct2009.

When my boyfriend came here from the Philippines at the age of five, his parents enrolled him in elementary school. He started and finished his schooling in the United States and until he turned 16 the only alienation he felt was for his sexuality. It was when he was ready to apply for his driver's license that he found out why the privileges of being American that he expected to grow into as he aged along with his peers were off limits to him. He couldn't get a driver's license, or a car, or a first job. He was undocumented. The realization came as a shock. Regardless of the language he spoke, the music he listened to, the history he identified with, the clothes he wore, in the few seconds it took for those words to come out of his parents' mouth, it all ceased to matter. Without that piece of paper, he wasn't American. But he wasn't truly Filipino anymore, either.

But Harold, an American citizen, could not sponsor his boyfriend because there is no such provision in the law. Until and unless Congress passes the Uniting American Families Act, gay immigrant youth have to put their focus on getting the DREAM Act passed that can at least give them the residency status required to not separate from either love or country.

Gay rights do not take place in a vacuum—they are intricately linked with immigration rights, welfare reform, healthcare, to name a few. Citizenship and marriage are both ‘exclusive and privileged’ and reified, reproduced, and legitimated by the constant battles for ‘same-sex marriage’ or immigration equality, hence it is in the interest of the state to keep some people in the waiting rooms of history as ‘out-casts.’ While a society has many outcasts, the battle over LGBT and migrant rights is likely to take center-stage in reconstructing the American fabric of insiders and outsiders. In such a scenario, where do undocumented queer youth find themselves?

Undocumented queer youth working in the movement(s) for immigration reform often feel a unique alienation—they have to confront homophobia in their immigrant families and communities while staying in the closet with the LGBT community. Ben, an ex-undocumented youth originally from Mexico, recounts many experiences that are hidden and closeted in the media portrayal of immigrant families:

My father was also physically abusive to my mother and I never felt comfortable calling the police to report him because of our undocumented status. He had gone as far as pulling a knife on her and I felt so helpless that I sometimes felt like I needed to take it upon myself to end his life. These thoughts ran through my mind since I was around 10 or 11.

I left my house at the age of 17 before I had come out of the closet because of the fear I had started to feel from my family as they started to realize who I was. Having to live on my own at a very early age because of my sexuality and then to top that off with not being able to provide for myself due to being undocumented was immensely tough.

At the other end of the spectrum, UAFA is a good piece of legislation supported by organizations like Immigration Equality, but also ripe with tensions between citizenship and true equality. The divisions between the binary of queer citizenship and rights for the undocumented become stark when a gay American citizen proclaims:

Why should 12 million people who don’t respect the laws of this country be GIVEN the gift of citizenship, when I, an American Citizen, who plays by the rules, has had to LEAVE my own country?

Caught in the middle and required to ‘come out’ twice, queer voices are put in the backburner for pro-migrant reforms while gay immigrant rights revolve around rights for the ‘American citizen spouse’ rather than the undocumented.

Juan Rodriguez, a student organizer with Students Working for Equal Rights tells us how he is silenced even as he works for pro-migrant rights:

I felt that both were coming out processes I needed to go through in order to liberate myself and conquer my fear. Yes, I have met undocumented people that have opposed homosexuality and I know countless immigrants that don’t even want to be seen near LGBTQ individuals at all. I tell myself that I keep silent in certain spheres out of respect, by I know it is because I don’t want to rejected. It’s a heartbreaking thing when opportunities are ripped from an individual just for being who they are at no fault of their own.

The situation gets worse with the heteronormativity of status quo United States immigration laws. Even undocumented youth with a 245-I that could otherwise legalize their status through ‘marriage’ cannot do so due to their queer (non)-citizenship. A day at the immigration offices of a lawyer that would remain anonymous illustrates this frustration appropriately. The attorney in question suggested breaking a law in order to get around the existing discriminatory practices on the books:

"You can no longer claim legal residency under the petition filed by your grandmother. You are over 21 now and aged-out under the I-130,” said my latest attorney. I didn’t quite understand what he meant, the fear and confusion hidden in my nervous laughter.

"You are joking, right? They didn’t give me an F-1 visa to study here because my parents had filed for permanent residency and now you are telling me that I can’t get the permanent residency for which my visa was initially rejected?”

He shrugged, like it was no big deal. “You luckily have a 245-I and can get a Green Card in several years once your parents file for you again. Or you can just get married to a U.S. citizen,” he offered.

"What? I have already waited in-line a decade and marriage doesn’t help me—I am gay,” I answered, grating at the reminder of how another set of discriminatory laws worked against me.

“You can always get a marriage of convenience?” he offered without any emotion.

The unique oppression felt by undocumented queer youth also revolves around the inability of many to find sanctuary spaces within their culture and assumed home countries. Mohammad, who serves on the Organizing Committee of United We DREAM and organizes for immigrant rights in Michigan states:

I can't see myself living anywhere else other than America. All of my childhood memories are from America and it is the only home I have known.  Apart from that, I also happen to be gay and if one is at all up to date on their current events, then I am sure you know how unfriendly of a place Iran is for anyone who happens to be LGBTQ.  Iran is one of the countries that not only punishes people for being gay but also kills them.  Mahmoud Asgari, 16 and Ayaz Marhoni, 18 are two teenagers who were recently killed for no reason other than being gay.

Often, disaporic spaces are slower than the nation-state. Cultural attitudes might change at ‘home’ but disaporic immigrant parents capture culture in a time capsule and expect their children to adhere to cultural attitudes that may not reflect attitudes in their ‘home’ countries. In such a scenario, queer rights move slower than expected within immigrant communities steeped in machismo and cultural heteronormativity.

As it stands, heterosexuality is a pre-requisite for citizenship—unspoken, presumed and a normative category. Given that, what spaces do queers have in the movement for ‘comprehensive reform’ and citizenship? Several undocumented queer youth serve as key organizers in the movement for the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform. From an insider’s perspective, the biggest drawback for the movement for ‘comprehensive immigration reform’ is not in its militarization, top-down and pro-enforcement language but in the fact that it serves to alienate the LGBT community by assuming the heterosexual family norm. The much-hyped discourse of ‘family unity’ is reserved for straight families, and hence ‘comprehensive immigration reform’ is the very piecemeal effort that it opposes.

The movement for immigration reform–permeated in heterosexuality–has to incorporate queer voices and politics. Given the experiences of a second-class queer citizenship, what should constitute gay immigration politics is an inclusive effort to recognize citizenship as a violent construct that must not be denied to those who seek it. The concept of citizen has historically evolved violently from property-owning white males to include white women, freed slaves, immigrants of various nationalities, and people from colonized islands. To oppose expanding citizenship to undocumented immigrants is not only socially regressive but ignores the fact that citizenship has never been an immutable concept.

Gabe, an undocumented youth who blogs at Documenting Me, draws a valuable lesson from Harvey Milk on how to bridge spaces of division:

I want to recruit you for the fight to preserve your democracy! Brothers and Sisters, you must come out! come out to your parents, come out to your friends, if indeed they are your friends, come out to your neighbors, come out to your fellow workers.  -- Harvey Milk

Similarly, undocumented students must come out and tell their stories. We must tell our teachers, friends and anyone else who is willing to listen. We must call in to our Congresspersons, imploring them to support the DREAM Act, not only for ourselves, but for the good of this country. No one is free when others are oppressed. The DREAM Act is one small piece of legislation that attempts to correct the injustice of punishing youth for crimes they haven’t committed and reunites youth with their loved ones instead of condemning them to a permanent underclass and limbo status.

At the same time, we must press for the most inclusive, pro-migrant immigrant rights bill that celebrates not just some families, but all families.

Our LGBT undocumented students collective is here.