Report: U.S. immigration law hurts gays

Report: U.S. immigration law hurts gays
Christopher Curtis, Copyright by PlanetOut Network
http://www.gay.com/news/election/article.html?2006/05/02/5
Amid the national debate over immigration rights, Human Rights Watch
and Immigration Equality issued a report Tuesday on the problems faced
by thousands of U.S. citizens and their foreign-born same-sex partners.

The report, titled "Family, Unvalued: Discrimination, Denial and the
Fate of Binational Same-Sex Couples under U.S. Law," documents how U.S.
immigration law and federal policy discriminate against binational
same-sex couples.

The 191-page report describes the consequences of this discrimination
and explains how it can separate not only loving partners from one
another, but also parents from children. It shows how this policy has
destroyed careers, livelihoods and lives.

"Our immigration laws are undermining the traditional American values
of fairness and family," said Rachel B. Tiven, executive director of
Immigration Equality. "U.S. immigration policy is designed to keep
families together. But the current law targets an entire class of
American families and tears them apart."

Couples described abuse and harassment by immigration officials. Some
told stories of being deported from the United States and separated
from their partners. Many couples, forced to live in different
countries or even continents, endure financial as well as emotional.

"No family should be forced apart, no matter what the sex is. This is
how immigration laws have affected us," a woman in North Carolina told
report authors, describing how her Hungarian partner and their children
were forced to leave the United States. "We are separated and without
each other. . . . We just want to be together, that's all."

Many U.S. citizens are obliged to live in countries where their
relationships are recognized. At least 19 nations worldwide provide
some form of immigration benefits to the same-sex partners of citizens
and permanent residents, while the United States still refuses. These
countries include Canada as well as 13 European countries (Belgium,
Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway,
Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom). On other
continents, this list includes Brazil, Israel, South Africa, Australia
and New Zealand.

The report details how current U.S. exclusionary policies are rooted in
a long history of anti-immigrant sentiment, in which fears of sexuality
have played a steady part. From the McCarthy era until 1990, U.S. law
barred foreign-born lesbians and gay men from entering the country.

The United States is also one of the few industrialized countries that
ban entry by HIV-positive individuals.
The report concludes that Congress should immediately pass the Uniting
American Families Act. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Jerrold Nadler,
D-N.Y., and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., would offer binational same-sex
couples' relationships the same recognition and treatment afforded to
binational married couples.

"I don't think it's going to happen in this Congress," admitted Scott
Long, co-author of the report and director of the Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual and Transgender Rights Program for Human Rights Watch. But
Long believes this bill will "create the groundwork for the next
Congress and the Congress after that."

"It is conceivable that the bill can be passed within four years," he
said.