LGBT Immigrant Rights Updates

Published November 04, 2008 @ 08:00AM PT

Immigration Equality brings word of another victory in a gay asylum case-this asylum-seeker is from Mauritania:

Just last week one of our pro bono partners, Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler LLP, won asylum for a gay man from Mauritania. He had contacted our office after he had lost his claim for asylum and his appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). Patterson appealed the case to the federal court while simultaneously filing a motion to reopen with the BIA. Patterson submitted supplemental evidence about the horrific conditions for gay people - by some accounts homosexuality is punishable by three years in jail and by others, Sharia law imposes the death sentence. Finally, after an ordeal of several years, our client won asylum and can at last live freely in the United States.

And last week, Immigration Equality blogger Win pointed out this depressingly informative diagram (pdf) from the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (a great NY-based trans-rights organization) explaining why trans immigrants are disproportionately impacted by the current immigration enforcement regime.

For example:

Family-based immigration [is] not available because trans people's family members often reject them, trans marriages not seen as valid, chosen and extended family not recognized.

Employment-based immigration [is] not available because of job discrimination.

These are a few of the opportunity costs of enforcement-only policies; this is the human damage that our laws inflict. This is the result of ten thousand all-caps blog posts about TEH ILLEGALZ who are coming to wreck and pervert our pristine society.

Oh, and by the way, for anyone who can, vote No on Prop 8 in California. It's one small step towards a saner future for all of us.

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David is an attorney in Philadelphia, PA, where he helps immigrants to the U.S. navigate the complex immigration legal system. Views he expresses at change.org are his alone and don't represent the views or opinions of his employer, Nationalities Service Center. The information contained on this site is intended for educational and advocacy purposes only.