Change.gov (the official Presidential Transition website) added a new program to help Americans interact with the transition team.
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The “Open for Questions” tool allows visitors to post and vote for questions they want answer to.
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The “will President Obama sign UAFA” question has been posed and we need you to vote for it. A high position on the list of questions translates to more attention so help us keep the focus on UAFA.
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Below is a year end update from Rita, Mara, and baby Emma. Many of you might recall Rita and her family’s story from a Reuters article published last July. In her letter, Rita chronicles her forced exile, talks abouts her plans to make it through the next year and ask her friends and family to support Immigration Equality’s work.
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I encourage you to share your story with your friends and family and ask them to support our fight for fair immigration laws. The next year will couple great challenges with great opportunities, help us start off strong.
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Dear Friends and Friends:
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As we approach the end of the year, a time for thought and reflection on the events of 2008, I would like to provide an update on our situation in Germany and our fight to have the right to return to the United States, full-time one day. I would also like to tell you more about Immigration Equality, an organization that I support. Immigration Equality is working tirelessly for Mara, Emma and I, as well as other couples in our situation — and I would like to ask for your support as well.
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For now, Mara, Emma, and I will be leaving for Germany in early April. We will remain there until the beginning of 2010. Mara’s mother has already rented us a house in a neighboring village near Cologne, and we will be settling in rather quickly. Other developments include the fact that we will be having a civil union in Germany, as in order for me to obtain a resident visa, Mara and I must have our civil union almost immediately upon our arrival. Following that, we will be having our second child due in August.
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Throughout 2009, I will travel back and forth to Los Angeles every 8 weeks for about 2-week stints for face time with my employees and clients. My very close business colleague of 10 years will be living in our house during the time we are away. Needless to say, we have a lot on our plate and a great deal to prepare for with a bi-national move ahead of us.
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In light of these personal circumstances, I have spent another active year as a media spokesperson for Immigration Equality. Reuters covered our story in July, hitting daily newspapers across the US and internationally. In May, I spent two days in Washington, DC where I spoke with the policy directors for Senators Feinstein - California, Feingold - Wisconsin, Mikulski - Maryland and Leahy - Vermont.
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Last week, Immigration Equality met with President-Elect Obama’s transition team, along with other bi-national couples, and told them about our shared immigration dilemmas and the request for support for the UAFA.
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As we gear up for an important year in 2009, Immigration Equality wants to focus more resources on passing the UAFA. Our newly appointed policy director, Julie Kruse, is based in Washington and she brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to Immigration Equality. She has 15+ years experience working to advance civil rights and economic justice issues for the LGBT community. I look forward to working closely with her as we continue to fight for passage of the UAFA.
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In closing, I would like to ask that you make a contribution to Immigration Equality to support our important work. I realize this has been a financially challenging time for many. But if you are in a position to give, this is a great organization that is actually fighting to help someone you know, namely myself, Mara and Emma and our unborn child. I would also be happy if you wish to forward my message to anyone who might be interested in supporting us.
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Thank you in advance.
Rita
To make a donation, you can access the donate page from the upper right hand side of their homepage: www.immigrationequality.org
A couple of weeks ago we asked you to vote for UAFA in the Ideas for Change in America competition being conducted by Change.org (not affiliated with Change.gov or the Obama transition). Many of you voted and “Equal Immigration Rights for same sex binational couples” has maintained its number two spot in the immigration category.�
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The first round of voting ends at midnight tomorrow, please take a minute to vote and ask your friends to do the same. We have a great shot at making it to the final round.�
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The top three ideas from each category will make it into the final round and the top ten, after final voting, will be presented to the new administration on inauguration day. This is a great way to draw attention to UAFA.�
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Also, please remember that the final round of voting will begin next Monday and you will have to vote again to make sure we end up in the top ten. Take a minute to make it happen right now.
Eight years after the UN General Assembly first proclaimed December 18 International Migrants Day in 2000, they invite us to “observe International Migrants Day through the dissemination of information on the human rights and fundamental freedoms of migrants, and through the sharing of experiences and the design of actions to ensure their protection.”
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Immigration Equality invites you to share your story wiht us today. Let us how how discriminatory immigration laws impact your life so we can better protect loving same-sex binational couples around the world.
Change.org (not affiliated with Change.gov or the Obama transition) is taking a national poll to find out what issues the Obama administration needs to act first..
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Those top 10 issues will be selected after two rounds of voting and presented to the new administration on inauguration day. In the on going first round of voting, equal immigration rights for same-sex binational couples, UAFA, is number two in the immigration category. UAFA stands a good chance at making it to round two and possibly the top 10. Take a minute to make it happen right now.
Yesterday, the winner of the Civil Rights 2.0 video contest, an outstanding young woman name Missy Dominguez spent a few hours at our office to learn more about our issues and the organization.
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Last summer, the National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights (The Rollback Campaign), YouTube and MTV sponsored the web video contest to capture young people’s view of the modern civil rights movement. Missy won and as part of her prize she was flown to New York to visit MTV studios and a non-profit working on issues she cares about; she chose to visit Immigration Equality.
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Missy is devoted to educating herself and others about LGBTQ, immigration and women’s rights issues and has consistently used the tools of online networking and new media to encourage progress and discussion these issues. During her visit to our New York office, Rachel and I spent time helping her understand the issues binational couples are facing, our asylum work and our success in repealing the HIV ban. We are honored that she chose to learn about our work and hope that she will help educate more young people about these issues.
The Advocate published 26 letters from LGBT leaders to President Obama in its December 16, 2008. Below is Rachel’s letter to the President-elect asking him to address LGBT and HIV-positive immigration issues.
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Dear President-elect Obama,
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Congratulations. It is a special thrill for immigrant rights activists to have one of our own in the White House — the son of an immigrant, someone who personally embodies the energy, drive, and love for America that make immigrants America’s greatest natural resource.
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For lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender immigrants and the Americans who love them, your personal history holds a special promise. As the child of a binational couple who fell in love despite different citizenships and social stigma, you are uniquely able to understand the struggle of same-sex binational couples. Unlike a straight American, a gay or lesbian U.S. citizen who falls in love with a foreign national has no way to sponsor him or her for immigration benefits — and is then forced to choose between their beloved and their country. You have said you support an end to this cruel choice, an end to forced family separation, and an end to discrimination against LGBT immigrants.
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As you know, the answer to this injustice is the passage of the Uniting American Families Act. Please urge Congress to act on the bill, and insist that it be included in full, fair, and comprehensive immigration reform legislation.
There are several things you can do immediately to benefit LGBT immigrants and their families. First, fulfill the will of Congress and direct the Department of Health and Human Services to remove HIV from the list of communicable diseases that bar entry to the United States. LGBT immigrants have been unduly harmed by the ban because a same-sex partner cannot qualify for the waiver that an opposite-sex partner can. This summer, Congress repealed the statutory ban — all that remains is for HHS to promulgate a rule removing HIV from the list. Please direct the agency to do so without delay and bring American immigration policy into line with our country’s goal of erasing AIDS stigma around the world.
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Second, direct the Department of Homeland Security to update its instructions on the treatment of transgender immigrants and their families. On two issues — the granting of immigration benefits to married couples and the issuing of accurate identity documents — the actions of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services have not matched established policy. Precedent set by the Board of Immigration Appeals holds that married couples in which one person is transgender are valid for immigration purposes if the marriage was valid where performed. However, DHS has not issued instructions to its staff to abide by this precedent. On the matter of identity documents, DHS’s own internal memo states that identity documents should be issued to “reflect the outward, claimed, and otherwise documented sex of the applicant,” but this policy is often ignored.
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Many changes in law and policy must be made for America to retain its status as the preferred destination for people around the world. LGBT immigrants and their American family members know better than most how crucial those changes are — and they are counting on you.
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Rachel B. Tiven
Executive Director, Immigration Equality
A couple of weeks ago report Lauren Smiley spoke with me at length about transgender asylum cases. She seemed to be asking mostly for background information about asylum generally and at one point when she asked me whether “most” of our transgender asylum seekers had prostitution convictions I answered her truthfully that they were not and I don’t remember talking about this issue again.
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I (and all the other lawyers and advocates with whom she spoke) were shocked by the distorted, sensationalistic piece that was ultimately published. (The original story can be found here, but be prepared to get angry when you read it.) We all signed onto this letter which I wrote calling Ms. Smiley out for manipulating the information we gave her to fit the degrading spin she put on this story.
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The sad thing is that this is an important story – transgender individuals who fear returning to their countries should be made aware of the possibility of seeking asylum in the United States. But this story does a grave injustice to a community which is already extremely vulnerable.
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Here is the letter.
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Crossing Lines
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The legal argument: We write to protest Lauren Smiley’s offensive and inaccurate article, “Border Crossings” [Feature, 11/26]. We all spoke with Smiley at length, and are outraged at the misrepresentation of what we said. Rather than present a balanced picture of the incredible hurdles transgender asylum seekers face in proving their cases, Smiley unfairly painted them as criminals and prostitutes who are essentially given a free pass to immigration in the United States. This could not be farther from the truth.
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The implication that most transgender asylum seekers are prostitutes is untrue and offensive, and grossly distorts the information we gave Smiley. If the attorneys with whom she spoke appeared to have a high success rates on their cases, this is because she spoke with the handful of attorneys in the U.S. who are actually experienced enough in transgender matters to present well-prepared, well-argued cases. We all routinely turn down representation for individuals who don’t meet the legal standard, and unrepresented asylum seekers rarely win.
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The most important aspect of asylum law is that each application is decided on a case-by-case basis. If transgender applicants have a relatively high grant rate, it is because there continues to be such extraordinary violence perpetrated against transgender people around the world that they can often demonstrate a likelihood of future persecution.
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To make light of the courage transgender asylum seekers have shown in getting out of their countries and risking everything to seek lawful status in the United States does a grave injustice to these women and to the U.S. system that is required under international law to protect them.
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Victoria Neilson, Immigration Equality
Noemi Calonje and Shannon Minter, Immigration & Asylum Project, National Center for Lesbian Rights
Dusty Araujo and Eric Berndt, National Immigrant Justice Center
Americans made history this month by putting the son of an immigrant, the son of a binational couple, in the White House.
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In a great demonstration of the power of the immigrant vote, Obama’s victory was sealed by four battleground states – Nevada, Florida, Colorado, and New Mexico – whose outcome was dependent on the Latino vote going strongly for Obama.
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The results in Congress were no less outstanding for the LGBT and immigrant communities.
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Foes of immigration rights such as Elizabeth Dole and Marilyn Musgrove lost their seats in surprise upsets. New candidates who ran on anti-immigrant platforms lost.
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The Congressional leadership which watches election trends closely will now realize that pro-immigrant positions win elections.
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We’ve gained a critical new champion: Jared Polis, the first member of Congress to win his seat running as an openly gay man, told Immigration Equality he will push for passage of the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA). Jared replaced one of our House UAFA cosponsors – Mark Udall – who moved to the Senate, boosting the bill’s support there.
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Since November 4, Xavier Becerra, another strong UAFA supporter, has entered the House Democratic Leadership, winning its #2 position of caucus vice chairman.
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The Congressional Progressive Caucus elected as its co-chair Raul Grijalva – a strong UAFA champion, an expert on reaching out to Latinos about LGBT rights, and vice-chair of the LGBT caucus. In addition, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus selected Nydia Velazquez, a rock-solid supporter of LGBT rights, as their new chair.
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Immigration Equality will go all out to work with these new leaders to move UAFA forward in the new Congress and Administration.
Next Wednesday, join a terrific protest: “Day Without a Gay.” An ad hoc group is using December 10, International Human Rights Day, to call attention to how much LGBT people contribute to the economy without having the basic rights that others take for granted. They’re encouraging homos and straight allies to “call in gay,” and volunteer instead, plus decline to spend money for the day. Appropriately, the name of the protest was inspired by the film A DAY WITHOUT A MEXICAN and the nationwide strike in 2006 called A DAY WITHOUT IMMIGRANTS that protested proposed anti-immigrant legislation.
