Five Questions with Immigration Equality

by Michael A. Jones

Published February 20, 2009 @ 09:43AM PT

When it comes to the intersection of immigration and LGBT rights, no group knows the issues better than Immigration Equality (IE).  This week, we're hosting "Five Questions" with Rachel Tiven, the Executive Director of IE.   The organization has been going strong for fifteen years now, focusing on education, outreach, advocacy, and the maintenance of a nationwide network of resources for attorneys, politicians and those who are threatened by persecution or the discriminatory impact of the law.

We're also cross-posting this over at Dave Bennion's excellent Immigrant Rights blog here at change.org.  Check out Tiven's answers to our questions below, and for more information, visit Immigration Equality's Web site.  They've got amazing resources and publications, as well as the latest news on LGBT immigration issues.

After your victory last year in getting the HIV travel/immigration ban repealed by Congress, the Bush administration promised to remove HIV/AIDS from the Health and Human Services list of health conditions that make a person inadmissible for immigration purposes.  They never got around to it.  What do you understand the new administration's position to be on this issue?  Do you expect any progress on the ban this year?

Rachel Tiven, Immigration Equality: We are frustrated that the new rule hasn't been issued, but optimistic that the Obama administration intends to implement Congress' decision to end the ban, and soon.  We have kept pushing, and will keep pushing until the repeal is enacted.  Last Friday we sent the White House a letter signed by 150 organizations, calling for full implementation of the repeal. Change.org's Dave Bennion blogged on it this week - you can read the letter and see the list of signatories on our site.

President Obama has previously expressed support for the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), a bill that would allow U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents in binational same-sex relationships to sponsor their foreign-born partner for immigration benefits to the U.S. but stopped short of formally endorsing it.  What are the prospects for passing the Act this year?

The UAFA can't pass soon enough for couples like Amy and Lee, who are trapped in an impossible situation: Amy, an American, doesn't have the right to sponsor Lee for a green card because they're lesbians. Lee overstayed her visa when she and Amy fell in love – if their relationship were recognized the way straight couples' are, this wouldn't be a problem. They are raising two young sons together, but every day is full of anxiety for them. Because Lee is undocumented, she worries constantly about being picked up and separated from her family. She can't leave the country to visit her mother, who has cancer, because she would never be able to return to Amy and their children in the U.S.

Immigration Equality recruits couples like Amy and Lee to tell their story to members of Congress, and they're having a huge impact. The Uniting American Families Act was reintroduced just before Valentine's Day with a record number of original co-sponsors. In addition to pushing the stand-alone bill, we are working with our coalition partners to make sure that lesbian and gay families are included in any comprehensive immigration reform package. If the stars align, it could be this year, but regardless, we are always exploring new opportunities to change the law as quickly as possible.

How do you see online advocacy playing a role in your work with LGBT rights/immigrant rights, both at present and prospectively?

For LGBT and HIV-positive immigrants, many of whom are doubly isolated in unfamiliar communities, the internet is a lifeline. Immigration Equality's website, www.immigrationequality.org, is the portal to our comprehensive legal services and advocacy work. The site provides free, accurate legal information and advocacy tools to LGBT and HIV-positive immigrants and the Americans who love them. At least half of our 1,500 annual legal intakes learn about Immigration Equality's services through the internet – from binational couples trying to stay together to asylum-seekers fleeing persecution. Citizen Orange praised Immigration Equality's website as "an easily navigable treasure trove of useful information—including the most comprehensive and best-organized asylum primer on the web."

For activists, online advocacy has expanded our reach on a niche issue. While the concentration of people who care about LGBT immigration rights in any one city is limited, the web allows Immigration Equality activists across the country and in exile around the world to come together. Our blog has become a sounding board for our advocacy work, because unlike other national LGBT organizations, it's a real blog, with comments! We are using the web to recruit spokesfamilies in under-represented areas, by encouraging people to fill out our "tell us your story" form and by partnering with state and local LGBT organizations to identify binational couples.

Immigration Equality notes that transgender individuals continue to face difficulties when it comes to the issue of immigration.  What are some of the unique obstacles faced by transgender immigrants?

I'm glad you asked, because Immigration Equality just wrote a book about these issues. "Immigration Law and the Transgender Client" is a first-of-its kind guide designed to help immigration lawyers better represent trans clients. We wrote the book in partnership with Transgender Law Center, and we are very proud that it was published by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) – their first LGBT publication!

The book has chapters on the four key issues facing transgender immigrants:

• Identity documents - Transgender immigrants must often jump through hoops to secure immigration documents that correctly reflect their name and gender identity. Recent attempts to tighten laws against document fraud pose serious risks for trans people, whose documents may vary.

• Marriage recognition - For many years, immigration cases involving a transgender spouse were treated like all other marriage cases, that is, as long as it was considered valid in the jurisdiction where it was entered into, it was generally recognized for immigration purposes. Suddenly, in 2002, USCIS appeared to reverse its long-standing policy and began to issue denials in all marriage-based cases involving a transgender spouse. Immigration Equality and several other legal groups collaborated to seek clarification and eventually to appeal several of these cases. The appeals were successful, but the current standard for marriage recognition is complex, and depends on how much surgical intervention a transgender person has had, where the couple is living, and where they were married.

• Asylum – As asylum based on sexual orientation and gender identity has developed over the past 15 years, Immigration Equality has won hundreds of cases and trained thousands of lawyers in representing LGBT asylum-seekers. Transgender asylum-seekers have had a great deal of success in bringing claims for protection; sadly, this is a testament to the severity of the persecution many transgender people face in their home countries.

• Detention - Immigration detention is a dangerous place for all immigrants but particularly for transgender people. Transgender detainees often find that instead of safe housing, they are quarantined into isolation cells as a "protective" measure. Hormone treatment is often denied, even though withdrawal of hormones can have devastating health consequences. Harassment by guards or other detainees is far too common.

The book is available from AILA's bookstore, or via an online version.

In 2007, Immigration Equality's Pro-Bono Asylum Program handled 120 cases and won every case that closed that year – a total of 30 wins.  In 2008, you expanded this Program.  What did this expansion look like, and what were the statistics for 2008?

Immigration Equality's legal team doubled in size in 2008: three experienced advocates and a paralegal answered 1,500 individual calls, e-mails, and detention letters from LGBT and HIV-positive clients and their lawyers. Of those, 32% were questions from binational couples, 33% were from people seeking asylum, 26% concerned HIV immigration issues, and 7% were from transgender immigrants.

The doubling of Immigration Equality's legal staff early in the year led to a dramatic increase in direct representation: the legal team represented and supervised more than twice as many cases in 2008 – 255 – as in the prior year. Of those, 56 closed in 2008, and all but one case was a victory. The cases came from around the world – from Peru, Pakistan, Venezuela, Uzbekistan, Cameroon, and many places in between. More winning asylees came from Jamaica than from any other country.

The staff expansion meant that Immigration Equality handled more cases ourselves, and we also screened, placed, and supervised more clients with pro bono firms. Thirty-eight of the nation's most prominent law firms handle LGBT asylum cases as part of Immigration Equality's pro bono program. This spring we will recognize the firms that won our toughest cases by honoring them at our Safe Haven Awards on May 19.